Immortalis Caris
by sisterglitch
Summary: Gender ambiguous vampire Edward meets human Carlisle, a former crystal meth addict.  The beautiful "Dee" offers an alternative addiction and a new life. Dark. Sensual. Adult. Extremely OFF-CANON. Blood, Slash Sex & Drugs. Edward/Carlisle
1. 1 Desire

**Immortalis Caris – Chapter 1**

He eased out of the access door onto the roof, careful to shove a tightly folded paper into the jamb to keep it from closing and locking him out. Hospital security did not appreciate having to retrieve smokers from their aerie.

It was colder than he had anticipated. Scrubs provided little protection outside the climate-controlled halls of Los Alamos Medical Center. His view of the sunny world from any of the weather-sealed windows gave the impression it was a hot summer's day on the mesa.

The vegetation never changed from season to season, neither did the colors of the landscape. The shades of the New Mexico desert, tawny inorganic beiges and blue organic greens, were minimal, intimidating yet transcendent. Only water or fire could truly transform such incomprehensible, impenetrable, ferocious beauty. Rain was so rare, he could remember only a handful of occurrences in the 3 years he'd been here - dense blue-gray clouds pressing down on newly soaked earth, the fragrances of the high desert pungently intensified with the miracle of moisture. But the queerest desert occurrence was the one impending. Snow. The fresh, charged air painfully brushing his exposed skin clearly announced its imminence.

He looked into the vast horizon, letting the jagged, fast-moving cloud formations fill his vision. He imagined the elusive faces of the elemental spirits of the Cochiti and Jemez Pueblo Indians in the shapes of the clouds. The visual features of the land and sky were well represented in tribal art; conversely, the icons of Indian legend were, to his eye, superimposed on every natural feature.

He pulled the menthol smoke into his lungs with the frigid air, fingers already numb, torn needily between another satisfying inhalation and the warmth waiting just inside the door. It would be 2 hours before shift change, and he would be too busy doing meds for two units to be able to slip out for another smoke. He'd be out the door by 3:30pm.

_Don't know why I rush – nothing to do at home anyway… Maybe I'll go for a beer…_

He wandered to the edge of the roof, leisurely cat-walking the perimeter. The sharp wind cut into him without the protection of the rooftop maintenance structures, but the discomfort was worth it. He had about an inch of cigarette time before his hands were too frozen to hold it and he would have to retreat to shelter.

He cursorily scanned the hospital courtyard below, then raised his gaze to the luxury "Doctors' condos" in the next lot. There were doctors who resided there, of course, but many other kinds of people as well - probably those guys from the labs. The condos were the latest thing in convenience technology, meaning the one thing everyone there had in common was money. Lots of it.

The rows of windows yielded nothing today, and he dropped his eyes guiltily as he recalled the times he had spied something, or rather, someone, of interest during his rooftop breaks. He relished these secret glimpses into other people's worlds, worlds he would never know or share, lives of ample money, desirable women, confident men.

LVNs didn't make the money RNs did, and certainly nothing near what doctors made. He could have been an RN if he hadn't spent the tuition money partying._ But, hell, I deserved to live it up a little when the old man croaked, right?_

He lived in the oldest part of Los Alamos, not far from the national labs, in the military-style housing swiftly erected in the late 1940's for staff ancillary to the notorious Manhattan project. The houses had been badly built then and 70 years later were pretty much held together with paint and spit. He could afford the rent on his wages though, and to live without a housemate was a definite priority - worth other sacrifices.

God knows why he'd chosen to be a nurse. Truth be told, he liked people. They interested him, but he never felt comfortable around them. "Normal" was an act he'd never understood or mastered. He could work as a nurse because it gave him a uniform, a role – and people just saw what they wanted to see. He could get girls to go out with him, but couldn't keep a girlfriend. Once they got to know him, they realized he was too different to accept and too difficult to change.

He consciously realized his eye kept coming back to one particular window on the third floor corner. That condo had been vacant for a long time. Then suddenly, two weeks ago, curtains had gone up. Once up, the curtains had never been opened in the daytime. He had worked a double shift a few days ago, so he had been up here on break after dark. He had seen a slim figure holding the drapes aside to peer out onto the unsleeping city that was the hospital complex. Though the figure had been in silhouette there was enough backlight to reveal red hair – long, flowing – and the fair skin of an exposed arm and hand perched on a graceful hip.

There had been someone moving behind her. Indistinct. She had turned her head to address the person. She seemed agitated. Suddenly she was roughly jerked back into the room. He'd held his breath and urgently plotted how long it would take him to get over there.

_By the time I get all the way down to the hospital ground floor, cross the space between buildings, get into that fucking building… no way. They probably have state-of-the-art security over there, I'd never even get in…._ _Jesus, should I call the police?_

And then, just as suddenly, she had reappeared. She just stood there arranging her hair as if the wind had blown it slightly out of place, but she seemed alright. He breathed deeply, trying to calm down. _She's OK? Really?_ As if to reassure him, she slid one hand higher up on the edge of the curtain, a pose of exaggerated relaxation.

He breathed in sharply, as if to capture and hold that loveliness in his forceful inhalation – a snapshot composed of oxygen and adrenaline, printed on his mind. Longing had overwhelmed him for a moment; he had had to move away from the precarious edge until he regained his presence of mind. And in the brief second he had turned his focus to assure the safety of his stance, she had vanished.

He could still see her now, an afterimage burned into his retina, and he found himself desperate to see again that flame-haired vision, to pair it with memory, to reinforce its reality.

But today, as usual, the eye in the edifice stayed stubbornly closed.

He took the last decent drag from his American Spirit then crushed it against the access door. His paper doorstop fell, as did he - back into the bowels of the hive, back to warmth, to work, to a different kind of numbness altogether.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_**Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!**_


	2. 2 Loner

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 2**

Entering the Canyon Bar on Central Park Square, he let the warm darkness encase his weary light-plagued brain. The day shift at the hospital was the most coveted, but he preferred swing shift or graveyard. His particular internal clock was set to wake him at the dimming of the light - dusk, not dawn. He downed energy drinks to help him drag his body to work each day at the ungodly hour of 7am, but what he really needed was something else… he licked his dry lips…

much stronger. Just the reminder that crystal meth existed in the world made his teeth tingle with wanting. Ice - God's terrible gift to the somnambulists who walked the earth having to deal with the torturous drudgery and nonsense of everyday life.

_Talk about forbidden fruit, man. Adam and Eve were lightweights!_

But those days were over. _Over!_ Crystal was the lover who'd driven him as low as he could go, to the very edge of his humanity. That's why he'd left Chicago, to get away from the people, the temptation, the hunger that plagued him in every still space between actions, every interstice between thoughts.

Of course, you could get any drug anywhere and the "Land of Enchantment" certainly had its share of tweakers, but in the 3 years he'd been here, he'd managed to skirt every place, every person, almost every _mention_ of meth. He sent up a silent prayer in thanks – and as an offering to keep at bay the constant fear of backsliding.

Still, he noticed things, overheard things normal people would ignore. It was like he had a sixth sense for the stuff. He knew how to get it if he wanted it.

_I don't want it. Fuck yes, I want it. I refuse to allow myself to want…_

"Carl!" The bartender greeted him.

Rose!" he responded with a smirk, knowing he would be instantly reprimanded.

"It's Rosa-leeee, you bastard, and you know it," she scolded, as predicted, drawing out the syllables.

"It's _Carlisle_, you -," he paused, not pronouncing the explicative she certainly deserved for shortening his name to that one ridiculous syllable. _Why do I spare her? _She had the beer on the bar before he even sat down, -that's why. Harp draft. He smiled, letting her think she was forgiven. There was no point annoying her. He was a regular, he was accepted here without question, why rock the boat? It was just a name, right?

She would never know or care how the name Carl sent shivers of fear and hatred through him. That's what his father had called him, but never with love. After too many years of drunken abuse in the wake of his mother's death, Carlisle had finished high school in upstate Wisconsin and just left. The old man had barely noticed, he was sure of that. It was probably a relief to be rid of the responsibility of a kid so he could drink himself to death in peace.

The first sip was the deepest. Cold. Crisp. A taste of Irish sunshine. God. He was a fucking commercial for the stuff. This place carried it on draft only because he and his buddies had requested it.

Buddies. What a strange word. And a stranger concept. They were OK guys, decent, clean, if not sober, but honestly, he wasn't one of them. NOT A TEAM PLAYER should be branded on his chest. But fortunately it wasn't, and somehow he had convinced a few someones he wasn't a total freak. They included him, and he half-heartedly accepted that inclusion, his concession to playing the game, of participating in "normal" society.

The guys liked the "dive bar" quality of this place – three-dollar beers their staple. The influx of college girls interning at the national labs was a constant draw to twenty-something local guys. The girls mainly showed up on weekends. On those nights the place was packed, a steady stream of quarters to the jukebox and at least an hour wait for the pool table. However, the usual clientele was the typical depressed-looking set of alcoholics and loners and the occasional tourist.

"Whaddayaknow, handsome!" She flirted in the detached but comforting voice of a confident middle-aged woman accustomed to an audience of lonely men.

"Oh, different day, same shit," he responded automatically.

"None of your boys been in here today – yet," she smiled. "You're getting a head start."

"Nobody at all by the looks of it," surveyed Carlisle, gesturing towards the dark expanse behind him.

"Just a few lunch drinkers, slow afternoon," she said. "Except this one new guy…"

"Yeah?" he questioned with feigned interest. "New?" He sipped steadily at the beer, relishing the cold even on this cold day.

"Guy came in here, ordered a shot," she continued, "asked me did I know anybody who sells."

The hairs on his arms and neck stood up, but he kept his voice level. "Sells what?"

She smiled indulgently at what she perceived as his naiveté. "He was lookin' for drugs, Carl-_lisle_ – but of course you wouldn't know about such things, now would ya?" Her implication suited him just fine - he appeared too innocent to be familiar with the subject.

"Oh. Like heroin, you mean?" Carlisle postured, but was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Naw. From the way he was twitching he was definitely riding the OTHER horse," she intonated meaningfully.

The young man put his best clueless face on, and waited.

"Speed freak," she nodded. "Seen it once in a while. Not a smack junkie – worse, if you ask me…"

Carlisle swallowed the mouthful of beer that had grown warm in his mouth. Why did he feel so guilty? He'd been clean for a year, and without NA, thank you. He'd done it on his own – without meetings, without a book of platitudes and testimonies, without well-meaning sponsors in his face. It had been an act of sheer will, a leap from the cliff into the waters of harsh reality, to sink or swim. He hadn't drowned, to his surprise. He'd come out the other side of the addiction clean, but hollow, as if he was watching someone else's life, not his own. But he knew he was still hooked. He knew from the rush he got just thinking about it. If confronted with a bump, who knows if he could resist? _That's far from clean._

"You OK?" Rosalie's gravelly voice, uncharacteristically close and soft, interrupted his diversion of thought.

"Oh. Yeah. Sure." He smiled. "So. You told him to get lost, or what?"

"I can't be turning away potential customers just because they ask stupid questions, now can I? Not everybody is as together as you, baby."

She turned her attention to a couple who entered from the street, leaving Carlisle to nurse his lager.

He looked at himself in the bar mirror. _Far from perfection,_ he thought. Brown hair, blue eyes, nothing wrong with the face, the body. Essentially though – invisible. He could OD tomorrow and nobody would even notice. _This is the face of someone who's never been in love, _he thought as he wrinkled his brow, trying on different expressions: angry, innocent, arrogant, sultry. He relaxed his face – default expression, just lonely. He looked away from his reflection. _Pitiful_. _Not even I would fall in love with me. _He laughed humorlessly to himself, pushing his almost empty glass towards the inner edge of the bar for a second round.

He peered up at the Barbie-doll talking head on the TV screen closest to him.

_Local news. Nothing happens around here since World War II... they're probably engineering the end of the fucking world at the fucking labs... and the locals would be the last ones to know..._

"... gruesome discovery... the body of a man found off Guaje Canyon Road ... difficult to identify after a week of exposure to the elements and scavengers... a second body was found in a similar condition near US Highway 445 West of Santa Clara Canyon Road... death is estimated to have occurred more than two weeks previous to the Guaje Canyon death... both had a history of drug abuse..."

_Great. Probably scored, fixed and O.D.'d... fucking tweakers have no sense and no self-restraint... There but for the angels go I..._

He reached into his back pocket for the folded puzzle magazine he always carried. He thumbed through the pages with one hand as he patted his scrubs pockets for his mechanical pencil.

_Need to get a new one, this one has only crosswords left._

Crosswords were OK, but he preferred brain teasers, especially puzzles with numbers. They put him in a contented brain space, allowed him to stop the irrational world that required constant interpretation, and retreat to the uncomplicated, concrete logic where a solution was always guaranteed.

The bartender was still engaged in conversation with the couple, so had not yet set him up with another beer. He laid a five on the bar, re-pocketed his book, put on his jacket. With a wave to Rose, he headed out the door to hit the games store before it closed.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_**Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!**_


	3. 3 Enigma

He made it to the games store on 15th & Central Ave a good fifteen minutes before closing. He quickly browsed the aisle of puzzle books and chose one heavy on seduko, light on crosswords and word searches. He liked the atmosphere here.

He could spend hours browsing and playing.

It wasn't a chain store, just an independent shop run by an old Navajo guy who was obviously doing what he loved. His bread and butter were the video games and consoles that lined the walls in theft-proof acrylic boxes. However, the aisles on the floor were crammed with a fascinating array of items you could tell were the old guy's real passion.

There were board games ranging from strategy to wordplay to manual dexterity competition. He had intriguing toys like gyroscopes, kaleidoscopes, perpetual motion sculptures and liquid mazes. There was a section for magic, mostly card tricks and sleight of hand accessories; there was an aisle for jigsaws, from flat pictures to tessellated patterns to three-dimensionals.

There were two facing aisles devoted to a variety of 3-D puzzles, a far cry from the throw-away paper kind he was addicted to. There were the popular commercial puzzle-toys like Instant Insanity and Rubik's Cube. There were items so intricate and strange it was hard to imagine how they classified as puzzles at all. It was a collector's assortment, from simple to near impossible, most imported, labeled in exotic languages: tangrams, tanglements, interlocking, disassembly, wire, dexterity, magnetic, mechanical, logic. It was dizzying. The old man always had a sample or two open on a display shelf, and was constantly manipulating one in his hands between customers.

Carlisle had a few minutes to spare before closing, so he picked up the display of the day, labeled as a combination disassembly/interlocking puzzle, an aesthetically pleasing cherry wood cube that came apart into a handful of deliciously smooth pieces. He began to fit them together, working from the inside out. In less than a minute, he was so absorbed he didn't notice another person had entered the aisle, and had come to a stop behind him, watching his efforts carefully. He glanced briefly over his shoulder to see a young person in a mint green hoodie, startling green eyes bright in a pale face, watching his progress. He continued to fuss with the toy but it was far more cleverly constructed than he had assumed at first, and he soon realized it would be hopeless to solve it in the few minutes he had available.

He looked back at his observer again, smiling sheepishly.

It was a young woman, who at his glance, smiled lopsidedly, raising her eyebrows - a clear offer to take over the task for him. He acquiesced without resistance, pouring the pieces into her rather large yet delicate hands. As their hands touched, he noticed how cold hers were – _no wonder, considering the weather._ He got a momentary sensation of softness, and the blush that blossomed in him heated more than his face.

The moment the silky wood rested in her palms, her long fingers went into action. It was amazing to watch her confidence as she wove the parts swiftly into a coherent whole. His embarrassment faded, his breathing hitched and his jaw dropped when suddenly she was calmly presenting him with a perfectly assembled cube.

"How on earth…" he took the object from her, turning it over in examination. "How did you do that so fast?"

"Oh, it's one of my favorites," she answered nonchalantly, though her eyes charmingly expressed a measure of triumph that she had managed to impress him. "It's Japanese. I have one at home."He wasn't listening to her words as much as the somewhat husky timbre of it. It vibrated through him, drew him in inexplicably.

They were so close he could see a reddish cast to her eyebrows and long eyelashes. _She's attractive,_ he thought, _though not very feminine. _She was just a couple of inches shorter than he so he could easily assess her face. It was angular and lovely, featuring high cheekbones and full, gracefully shaped lips. He noticed again her extreme paleness, the only color in her lips and cheeks a rather violet tinge under her beautifully translucent skin.

"Well," he said quickly, recovering himself and putting the cube back onto the shelf almost regretfully. "Thanks. They're, uh, closing. Are you buying something?"

She put her hands inside the front pocket of her hoodie and drew out a tiny plastic bag printed with the store's logo. "I already did," she said.

"Well, then we'd better get out of here," he said, as he moved towards the front door, removing his gloves from the pocket of his down jacket. He looked her up and down with puzzlement.

"Where's your jacket?"

She shrugged, indicating what she was already wearing.

"You're kidding!" he exclaimed. "It's going to snow any minute!"

"I never feel cold," she replied. "Thanks for your concern, though."

They emerged into the courtyard area between the group of little shops. The cold immediately sunk its teeth in, but at least they were protected from the wind. He took out his cigarettes. She paused beside him so he offered her one.

"Oh, no…" she stumbled, "I- I don't –"

"That's good," he parried before she could even finish. "These things will kill ya."

"Right." She gave a short uncomfortable laugh.

_Odd,_ he thought. _One moment she's all smooth confidence, and the next she's rather awkward._ He lit his cigarette.

There was silence as he took a few drags and looked up at the fading light in the sky. _She never makes eye contact for long, _he thought.But when she did, his whole body reacted in a most unnerving way. _Damn, she has amazing eyes! Green like… like… broken auto glass… _

"Carlisle," he said, suddenly offering his gloved hand.

"Dee," she said, offering hers slowly in return, but she only brushed his glove and retreated instead of grasping his hand in a handshake.

"How're you getting home?" he asked, looking up again at the cloud-heavy sky.

"I walk," she said, shuffling her feet a little but still giving no sign of being chilled. "I live over by the Medical Center."

"That's a good mile," he said with surprise. "I'm not letting you walk! Not in this weather. I'll drive you."

She was silent a moment, then looked up at him uncertainly. "I, uh, well, I guess that would be OK…" she wavered.

"Hey, don't worry, I'm not a predator or anything," he grinned widely. "Of course, all the predators say that, right?" He unzipped his jacket to show her the neckline of his scrubs. "I work at the hospital."

The look on her face was hard to read, incredulous maybe, with a touch of irony. "I'm not worried… Carlisle. You're very kind to offer."

He nodded, put out his cigarette, and motioned to the street.

"Good. Shall we? I'm freezing."

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

The heater worked well in his VW Rabbit, though God knows the AC never worked in the summer. She seemed indifferent to the temperature, but nodded and smiled politely when he asked her if she was warm enough. _So slight,_ he thought again as he watched her in his peripheral vision inside the car, _and not even wearing winter shoes – just canvas deck shoes without socks. _The hood on her flimsy jacket framed her face in a tightly gathered oval, and he found himself wondering what her hair looked like underneath it. He felt himself blushing again as his imagination wandered to other parts of her body covered by loose clothing.

"What did you get at the game store?" he asked her.

She pulled out the small bag again and removed what looked like a bunch of delicate bronze key rings tangled up together.

"It's a French wire puzzle," she explained, a touch of excitement in her low, velvet-pitched voice. "They just got it in, it's a traditional one from Romania." She graced him with those bottle-glass eyes again for an extended glance as she revealed her passion. "I collect puzzles."

Carlisle was having trouble finding something intelligent to say in response. They were passing the hospital so he offered, "I work days. There. LAMC."

"You can drop me here," she answered.

"Here? At the hospital? I don't understand…" he floundered.

"Well, I just live there," she gestured to the condos at the end of the block.

"You live in the new Omega Condominium Complex?" He tried not to sound so very shocked, but his confusion was too profound to hide. She didn't look like she had money, but even rich kids all seemed to dress ghetto these days.

"Yeah. We just moved in a couple weeks ago," she laughed.

He looked at her sharply. "What floor?" He realized the inappropriateness of the question as soon as it left his lips. _How creepy was __that__, Carlisle? Talk about lack of social skills!_

But her easy response surprised him. "Third. Corner." Her gaze was fixed on him, but with no trace of suspicion or intimidation.

Despite the heat of the vehicle, a cold chill moved up his back. He knew he was covered in goose bumps, invisible underneath multiple layers of fabric insulation. This couldn't be the woman he had seen in the window. _No way. _But then hadn't she said "we just moved in"? Who was the other person? A parent maybe? A woman with long red hair?

He pulled into the drop-off zone, and she lightly hopped from the car. "Thank you, Carlisle." She closed the door, made eye contact once more, then turned and walked into the building. He was too stunned to move. He regained his presence of mind after a moment and relaxed his right foot, which was holding down the brake as if attempting to keep the world at a standstill until he was ready to allow it to proceed. He rolled forward, but instead of exiting right into Fairway Drive, took a left turn around the complex to try to approximate the view he always had from the hospital roof. He parked at the back of the hospital near a loading dock and watched the third floor window he had monitored so many times.

A minute later, a light went on inside the condo. Another minute, and the closed drapes were opened just enough for him to see the silhouette of a slim hooded figure in the bright gap. One pale hand reached up, pulling the hood off its head, then two hands in unison moved to the back of the head. In the partial, but sufficient, light he saw what he had hoped for but never expected.

Her hair unfolded. It was long, flowing, and the color was most unmistakably red.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!_


	4. 4 Distraction

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 4**

He couldn't wipe the grin off his face. He wasn't superstitious, he didn't believe in luck, but this kind of coincidence had to be significant _. I can't believe that's the same person! I'll be goddamned, meeting her like that!_

He took himself back to the first time he had seen her in the window. She'd been wearing a dress, or a robe maybe; the feminine pulchritude he'd imagined was far from the dress and demeanor of the person he'd met tonight. The first time he'd seen her from the roof he'd gotten hard almost instantly. _Yeah, well, it doesn't seem to take much these days, I'm so fucking desperate!_

The memory continued to the glimpse of violence he'd seen in the window that night. Some man had grabbed her in anger, possibly hurt her. _Is that how she lives? In an abusive relationship?_ Protectiveness suddenly infused him. Years of abuse from his father had made him selfish, self-protective above all and he wasn't used to caring what happened to others.

_But I care about her, don't I?_

Without conscious volition, he found himself voicing the words aloud."I care about her."

When he was younger, he had prayed someone could save him from his father's daily wrath, but no one had ever rescued him, he had just learned to cope – to suck-up to the jerk, to avoid him, but more often just to take whatever harsh treatment he had to - to keep the old man from killing him. He couldn't bear to think this girl was suffering a similar existence.

_Tomorrow. I'll check on her tomorrow._

He'd find a way to see her again. He felt completely sure of this. He started the car_._

_Restless, so restless. Nothing to do in town, that's for sure. Can't go home yet._

Española was a twenty-five minute drive up the 30, off the mesa.

_A movie - that will kill enough time_. It would distract him from the undercurrent of obsessive thoughts long enough to resist acting on them. This was the state of mind he most feared. This is when he was the most vulnerable to relapse. Boredom – it was the catalyst to the craving that flowed just under the surface of his clean rehabbed self. _Damn! A movie it is._

He stopped at a hole-in-the-wall joint in Espanola for a plate of their specialty: green chili pork posole. He dumped the whole side portion of chipotle salsa into it before he even tasted it. He smiled as he realized he probably only ordered the intense and earthy corn stew as an excuse to gorge on their toe-curling smoky jalapeño salsa. _Some like it hot..._

As he smoked out front after the meal, he realized the Tex-Mex dive was only a block from the town "adult video" store. He'd already seen everything of interest at the Dreamcatcher multiplex downtown. _What the hell… let's see what's playing at the porn house…_

A porno theater, per se, was an anachronism. These days you could rent almost anything, download almost anything from the internet. There were two tiny box theaters attached to the video store -more like screening rooms than actual theaters - with about 100 seats each. He was sure they had once shown classics like "Deep Throat" and "Behind the Green Door", but these days people were more likely to rent adult movies and take them home to the privacy of their in-home theaters. Espanola – like a lot of places in New Mexico – seemed to be stuck in an earlier decade.

One of the two movies they offered was a Japanese "pink" film, so named because the animation-generated censorship marks over the genitals in Japan were colored bubblegum pink. He'd seen one of the Japanese versions, and the hilarious thing was that the dancing pink rectangles missed their marks some of the time, revealing the quite un-shocking nudity beneath. Of course, there were no censor marks when they showed the films outside of Japan. Here in the States, they were considered more "art-house" type films with subtitles, credible plots and decent acting. There was sex, to be sure, but it never seemed as hardcore, never as grubby and tasteless, as American films. It was more voyeuristic, more sensual.

_Not a bad choice_.

The movie started at 7:00, and he sat down 5 minutes before it started. There were only two other guys in the theater. The smell of popcorn mixed with some sweet disinfectant smell.

_Gross_. _That much hasn't changed._

The previews started. Several more men entered. A couple entered, the woman giggling and whispering to her partner. People sat as far away from each other as possible.

_That hasn't changed either._

A biker type came in and chose a seat against the wall in a row one down and across from Carlisle. He kept looking around at the other audience members instead of at the screen. He seemed to be looking for someone. He drummed his fingers on the back of the seat, he crossed his legs, he uncrossed them.

_That guy is definitely tweaking_. _Probably came in here to score… or jack off… wonder how many days since he slept… my guess is he's on at least a four day run so far…_

Opening credits. Koto music. Rice fields. Bamboo. Kimonos.

The biker guy across from him got up and walked towards the lobby. Carlisle relaxed in his seat, more comfortable that there was now no one too near him.

The film did not disappoint. It was fascinating how creative these filmmakers had to be to NOT show what American films just put right in front of the camera. Japanese law prohibited the display of genitals, or even pubic hair, so they'd had to work above the elemental American level to achieve a pornographic effect. Nudity was at a minimum, leaving details to inference and imagination. Even sex acts, sprinkled liberally throughout the story, relied on what Carlisle thought of as a clever sleight-of-hand with the camera. Just enough was revealed. Just enough was hidden. A teaser.

In this particular film the lovers were supposed to be cousins involved in a forbidden affair. The Asian actor and actress were so similar in appearance, gender lines were often blurred. You would think you were seeing the body of the woman, then the camera would pull out to reveal it was the male being observed so sensually.

Carlisle found it highly erotic and soon enough his hand wandered to his lap to add a bit of manual stimulation to the visual and auditory. He closed his eyes, letting his own private film screen in stuttering flashes behind his eyelids.

Long pale fingers ran through lengthy auburn hair, that same hand replacing his own now buried beneath the waistband of his scrubs. He imagined it lightly but eagerly touching him until he was fully hard, then began to more aggressively stroke him. He arched his back, wriggling slightly in the confining seat, his restrained panting inaudible to others underneath the sounds of the film. He expanded his visualization to the face of the person belonging to that most accommodating hand - solemn green eyes and cool blue-violet flushed lips. He locked his teeth together as cold electricity hummed the length of his spine. He gripped the armrest and mouthed her name as he released into his warm hand.

He sat in the darkened space for about ten minutes, recovering, fighting drowsiness before he got up and headed for the exit. The film played on as the lobby door swung shut behind him. He fumbled for a cigarette, suddenly fully awake as he hit the freezing night air.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_**Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!**_


	5. 5 Dreaming

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 5**

He squinted in the dimness of the cave, but it didn't help him see any more clearly. Somehow he knew it was a cave, somewhere so deep in a mountainside the sunlight that did reach this far in, it seemed like a hallucination of light behind closed eyelids rather than the real thing.

He was sitting beside someone who was stretched out on the ground.

Dead or asleep? He wondered. He reached out hesitantly, his hand brushing the bare skin of a chest. Soft and cool. He detected movement, rhythmic and involuntary. Breathing.

He explored the form with the most feather-light of intermittent touches, discovering the landscape: prominent clavicle, breastbone, abdominal muscles, navel. He didn't seem to be disturbing the placid being below his hand. Wandering further, he encountered the familiar delicate yet elastic skin of a penis, and rolling his palm, stroked the tender surfaces on the inside of the open thighs with the back of his hand.

He got the sensation his hand belonged to himself and someone else at the same time, that he was looking at himself lying beside himself. That's when his conscious mind was triggered to realize he was dreaming, and with a surge of satisfaction he took control of the dream.

He allowed excitement to ignite in him as he laid down beside the form in the darkness. He blindly imagined details of the flesh that aroused him. Cupping the other's yielding member in his hand, he applied gentle pressure and finger movements. The body's breathing became slightly more erratic; his own body echoed the response.

A few feet away, he willed a spark to flare out of nowhere, then grew it into a timid flame. With this faint illumination he could now see the being he awakened.

Flesh so pale, its luminescence dispelled the darkness. Copper locks that seemed alive, woven with strands of restless fire as they spread out below its head like a fallen veil.

The first word that came to mind was "angel," unearthly in its physical perfection, delicate but at the same time powerful. The word that now hovered in his consciousness was "awesome" in the archaic sense: terrible, fearsome, inspiring awe.

He forgot to breathe, but breathing did not seem necessary.

The muscles of its arms and chest rippled and tightened under its tissue-paper skin. Its hands flexed, the long fingers tipped with almost claw-like fingernails. It opened its eyes languorously to reveal black iris-less eyes. The perfect lips curved into a divine smile before they parted to reveal sharp, glistening teeth.

It spoke. The rich voice pulled at his control, sought to bind him, to meld their identities.

"Carlisle…"

His body jolted, a feeling of falling, and he awoke gasping, heart racing, his own cock painfully hard in his hand. He pushed himself off the bed in confusion, searching for the bedside clock, his touchstone for reality. The red numbers glowed fiercely at him in the disorienting blackness: 5:21am.

His alarm was set to go off at 5:30. _OK. That makes sense._ Last dr

eam of the sleep cycle - the most intense, the most clearly remembered upon waking.

Jesus Fucking Christ! What the HELL kind of dream was that? Surely that qualified as a nightmare, if not an out-of-body experience! He let himself fall back onto the bed, shifting uncomfortably as his erection slowly waned.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

He was having an off day at work.

His job could be rather demanding, and he needed to keep his mind focused. LVNs did almost everything RNs did, anything and everything the RNs didn't want to do. RNs made a lot more money - which often accounted for a lot more attitude. Officially, it was the RNs' responsibility that the meds were correct, but he always double checked because he'd found errors before… discrepancies. He had his eye on one person in particular. She was sampling the meds, he was sure of it. Takes an addict to know one. But today, he didn't have the concentration for such vigilance.

First, there was that disturbing dream that had woken him this morning. Damn! He needed to get laid, that was clear. There was nobody he could talk to about the dream – he didn't have any friends except the guys at the bar, and they'd just laugh and call him a fag. He'd always hated that word - one of his dad's favorite epithets. He wasn't gay. Of course not. Damn dream like that just makes you doubt yourself. Probably everybody had dreams like that. Normal. _Yeah. _Guys just didn't admit it. He was horny, and things get mixed up in a dream.

Second, there was that girl, Dee. Now there was a mystery worth pursuing. His mind kept returning to their brief interaction last night. She seemed easy to be with – no games like so many of the girls he'd met. He'd never thought about it before, but maybe he'd been going for the wrong kind of girl. Maybe the less flirty, less feminine girls offered more of what he was looking for. _What am I looking for?_ He liked her looks, even though they weren't typical. He kept seeing her face, her eyes. She made him feel off balance, but somehow that seemed right - a pleasant giddyness. There was a maturity there, despite her obvious youth, that he couldn't remember in any of the girls he'd known before. He kept thinking about kissing her.

Was it possible she liked him too? _Slim chance. Let's be honest._ _Who'd she live with anyway? It could be a boyfriend. _That hadn't crossed his mind before now. If it wasn't a parent, it was probably a boyfriend. _How can I find out? Without stalking her, that is. Well, a little non-threatening stalking might be necessary._ He could go to the door of her apartment and just knock. She seemed to be around in the evenings. _Oh sure. Just knock – but then what should I say if someone else answers the door?_

Some guys just walked up to a girl and asked for what they wanted. He wasn't that kind of guy. He needed more of a plan.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

He stopped by the games store after work, hoping he'd see her, but there was nobody in there except a bunch of hyper games geeks making the old man crazy. He picked out a small metal cube puzzle, paid for it, and went back to his car. He started the engine and pulled out onto Central, the main road towards the condo complex.

He made a sudden right turn. _I can't do this._ _C'mon Carlisle,_ y_ou can't just waltz up to the door of some chick you met once and think she'll be happy to see you._ He headed the few blocks over to Canyon Bar. _Maybe a bit of liquid courage and re-think this..._

There were a few guys at the bar when he walked in. Rosie was busy, but she did not fail to have his beer cold and ready on the left end of the bar before he could sit.

"Thanks Rosalie. Hey, how do you know I even wanna sit here?" he said jokingly.

"Guys are predictable," she smirked cockily.

_You think so?_ he thought. _Well baby, you might be surprised if you really knew me..._

As she swiped the surface directly in front of him with a rag, she murmured, "That's the guy I told you about yesterday." She jerked her head towards the opposite end. "He's back."

Carlisle zeroed in on his beer, tasted the joy, then settled back to observe the guy peripherally. _Oh shit_. He choked on his beer. _It's the "biker guy" from the porn theater in Espanola._ He was kind of rough-looking compared to the usual clientele in here: worn jeans, t-shirt, leather vest, black boots. Dusky skinned - maybe part Native American. Wiry, lean, strong, about 50. Black hair, longish, thinning on top. Dark eyes, coarse skin, bad teeth.

_Fugly_.

Carlisle smiled to himself just as the guy looked up. The guy picked up his beer and ambled over. _Oh shit, here he comes. _He left one stool between them and made himself at home. Carlisle caught Rosalie's expression in the distance, eyebrows raised, watching his reaction with way too much amusement.

"How're ya doin'?" the guy opened.

"Not bad," Carlisle answered casually, unable to think of anything else.

"Jess," he offered one calloused hand. Carlisle didn't want to shake it but didn't see any way out of it.

"Carlisle."

"You live around here? You know the area?"

"Yeah. Some." _Be as vague as possible._

"I just moved here," Jess said, leaning back on the stool, not making eye contact, flexing his arms on the edge of the bar. "Lookin' to make connections."

"Oh." Carlisle knew Rosie was listening, and he didn't want to dispel her view of his innocence. "Well, jobs tend to be scarce up here, but the casinos are always hiring."

Jess smiled indulgently. "Don't need a job, man. Need weed – etcetera – if ya know what I mean."

Carlisle laughed uncomfortably. "When you're subject to testing at work on a regular basis, you tend to stay away from ... things."

Jess looked straight at Carlisle, frankly assessing him. "Hmmm. I figured you for a guy who knows how to party."

Carlisle blushed with embarrassment and anger. How dare he? How and what the hell could this guy tell, anyway? _I changed my life, and worked hard at it. _He clenched his fists between his thighs. "Well, not at the moment," he faltered.

The guy gave him that you-might-fool-them-but-you-don't-fool-me look.

_Asshole,_ thought Carlisle as Jess got up to leave.

"See ya 'round, Carl."

"Carlisle," he responded reflexively, without looking up.

"Whatever," he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the bar.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_**Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!**_


	6. 6 Invited

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 6**

No bad dreams last night, so he'd had better energy today at work. He'd toyed with the puzzle in his scrubs pocket all day.

Today he would talk to her.

Finally. 3:30. He changed his shirt in the parking lot. Nothing much he could do about the pants but it felt dorky to be wearing his work scrubs to someone's house.

As he walked over to the Omega Condos, he felt his nerve waning. He stood in the courtyard for a few minutes rolling the puzzle around in his pocket. _OK, Carlisle, you can do this._

He'd never been inside the building before today, and was more impressed than he thought he'd be. Sweeping circular marble lobby, lush trees in planters, recessed lighting. Surveillance cameras. _Good grief._ He quickly scanned the building directory, and though it was clear which residences were on the third floor, he couldn't tell by the names and numbers which of the 10 was hers. He pressed a random 3rd floor button, and a young adult male voice answered.

"Is Dee in?" he ventured.

"Don't know no Dee," the bored voice said.

"Oh. Sorry. Wrong condo. She just moved in two weeks ago, I don't know the number."

Silence.

_Shit out of luck,_ he thought, but then the voice returned.

"Yeah, I know who you mean, but I don't know the number. It don't matter, I'll buzz you in."

There was a click and a loud chime. Carlisle grabbed the bar on the door gratefully. _Thank god for stoned, apathetic youth._

The soundless elevator glided to the third floor, and when the door opened with a low, resonant chime, he exited hesitantly onto a plush carpet patterned with a subtle omega logo design. He oriented himself, then headed towards the end of the long hallway, calculating the position of the corner apartment.

He stood in front of the wide door with its numeric keypad and laser scanner. There was a mirror right at eye level, which he guessed allowed the occupant to see the caller in the peach-lighted hallway without being seen. He was about to knock, when he heard voices from inside. An argument.

_Bad timing, Carlisle,_ he thought, and started to back away. Then, something crashed, and there was a cry of pain, anger or both. Without thinking, he pounded on the door three times, and in the silence that ensued, he regretted it. There was no sound or movement for at least 60 seconds, and he considered just abandoning the mission. _Get into the elevator. No one will know who knocked._ Just as he started to back away, he heard the deadbolt softly being drawn._ Too late._

The expression on the face of the man who opened the door had obviously already gone through several phases of surprise, irritation and questioning before it confronted Carlisle - the advantage of a two-way mirror. But there was no such merciful buffer for Carlisle's speechless confusion when he recognized Jess in front of him.

"What do _you_ want?" Jess growled.

_I am so screwed!_ Carlisle thought fast. "I, uh, might have some info for you. You know, what you asked me yesterday." He kept his voice low.

The older man's expression, though still suspicious, softened. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Meet me down at the bar about five."

"Why can't you tell me now?" Carlisle noticed a cut on the man's cheek. He hoped Dee wasn't injured as well. He wanted to call out to her, but how absurd would _that_ be? This guy might hurt her just for knowing another guy. _Just be patient. You'll see her soon._

"Five. Canyon Bar. OK?"

"OK," Jess nodded grudgingly. "Five. What's in it for you?"

"A taste, what else?" Just speaking those words made Carlisle want it to be true. Carlisle moved his fingers restlessly, rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand, two of the many normally involuntary twitches that would confirm his addiction to a fellow addict.

Jess just grunted, nodding knowingly. He started to close the door. Carlisle turned to leave. "Hey!" the man suddenly called out.

Carlisle turned in response, but kept moving, backing down the hall towards the elevator.

"How did you know where I live?"

"See you at five o'clock!" Carlisle ran for the elevator.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 

Carlisle walked over to the hospital lobby and took a seat in the waiting room. _Perfect._ He could watch the entrance to the condominium complex without being seen. At 4:45, he saw Jess walking out the front door towards a pick-up truck parked at the curb. _Perfect. _The car took off down Central, and Carlisle headed over to the complex, this time buzzing the correct number. No voice answered on the intercom, but the door was released anyway. He anxiously retraced his earlier steps to the third floor apartment.

He knocked lightly on the door, listening carefully. After a minute, he knocked again. He touched the metal place under the door mirror and heard the internal chime. _She has to be here._

"Carlisle," came the muffled voice from within. "You really shouldn't be here."

Even muted, through the door, the voice drew him, held him there. He wouldn't have been able to walk away even if she had said the words to command him to leave. He had stopped breathing to hear more clearly.

"Are you OK?" he whispered, his cheek pressed to the panel.

Again, the sound of the bolt being drawn, and again he was afraid, but this was something more complex than fear. He could hear his heart loud in his chest. _You're a mess Carlisle! What is with you?_ The door opened.

She wore an oriental robe, clutched about her with her strange hands, and falling to her waist was, _my God!_ that glorious hair. It was rather disheveled, but nothing could have detracted from its beauty in his eyes at that moment. He felt stupefied, but fought through it to say simply, "I- I wanted to see you again."

"I know," she smiled slightly.

"Did he hurt you?" he queried, quickly examining her face, her half-exposed arms, her calves and feet below the robe. Seeing more of her body now than the day before, he was struck by how boyish she was. He found he liked her angularities even more today.

"No," she laughed, shaking her head. "You might have noticed, he's the one who's hurt." She drew an imaginary line on her cheek with her thumb. "You can come in. He's not here." She smiled. "But you know that. He went to the bar - like you told him to. Thank you for not saying you knew me."

"Your… boyfriend? Jess. You live with him?"

She examined him through those ethereal glass irises. There was a touch of humor in the gaze, and as always, that trace of... knowing... like nothing surprised her, nothing phased her. She was apparently tougher than her fragile appearance implied. _A hard life, maybe. _There was definitely something older about her personality. If she was with Jess, what did that say? He looked like a biker, a speed-freak for sure. This was not the kind of girl he would have expected Jess to be with.

"Does he live here? Yes. My boyfriend? No. But he'd like to think so." She hadn't even questioned how Carlisle had known Jess' name. She closed the door and proceeded into the dim room. The heavy drapes were closed and the table lamps on. Carlisle could see from the edges of the curtains that the light was fading outside. _She only opens them in the evening and at night,_ he thought. She must sleep during the day.

The room was furnished sparsely: a futon on the floor, a second-hand coffee table in front of it. A cheap curio cabinet filled with the puzzles she collected, a couple of tables, lamps. Nothing fancy. Nothing you would regret leaving behind. Maybe they moved a lot.

"I brought you something…." he handed her the box puzzle from his pocket.

"Yes," she said, almost as if expecting it, but not at all ungrateful. She rolled it over in her hands, her mouth turning up in that irresistible crooked smile. "Good choice. I don't have this one."

"But you know how to solve it already." Carlisle's voice held a trace of disappointment.

"No, actually, I don't."

_What a … hmmmm... touchable... mouth._

"But I will soon," her sea-green eyes twinkled as she glanced at him teasingly.

_What would it be like to press my lips to that cheek, skim that magnificent neck with my nose..._

She looked at him. "Go ahead then," she said, barely audible.

"What?" he asked, startled, blushing. It was like she'd heard what he was thinking.

"Do what you want to do."

She stepped closer to him. He caught the scent of her hair, and moved his face closer to her head. His chest expanded in an effort to breathe her marvelous scent deep into his starving lungs. How to define it... uncured leather, sage, wet river rocks, sun-bleached sand, desert flowers, warm and cool at the same time, something too wild, too elemental, to be contained in a painted, carpeted, temperature-controlled box in the city.

He raised his hands to her face, holding it as if it would shatter, and touched his lips to hers.

Behind his closed eyes the dark came alive with streaming figures of light and shadow. He pulled away with a gasp and the visions stopped. He met her eyes in bewilderment. Her pupils were dilated, the spectacular green irises just a thin ring around them now. Instinct set off an internal alarm. He dropped his hands and stepped back from her guardedly.

"Don't stop," she begged.

"What… was that?" he asked shakily.

"It's alright," she soothed. "Kiss me, and you'll understand soon."

He approached her again, moving against instinct, trying to trust the calm in her expression, unable to resist his own need he saw reflected there. Their lips met again.

Again, the rush of images, but as he continued to move his lips on hers, the pictures became more coherent. Among them he saw something like his own face, but handsomer, nobler, wiser, more content. He pressed into her with his tongue, his arms encircling her, nothing real to him at that moment but her fragrance, her texture, her cacophony of colors and images.

He stopped, to clear his mind, to look at her, head thrown back, her long neck stretched out pearl-pale and inviting before him. His hands had become tangled in the molten flow of her hair. He bent to press his nose and lips to the skin of her neck, as he had imagined, and her torso moved perfectly to his as if drawn by magnetic force. He ran his tongue along the violet blood vessel that displayed itself so invitingly beneath the smooth, living white gauze that was her skin. He tasted her, then his teeth followed, grazing her clavicle, then upwards to her jaw. She shivered, whispering something incomprehensible, as if in a foreign language, yielding so fully in his arms he was supporting her completely.

He held her closer to balance himself. She was heavier than she appeared, but his limbs rallied and his cock jumped in anticipation. He moved one hand to open her robe, but she held it tightly closed, resisting him. He made a low groan of frustration which she turned into a sound more like pleasure when she reached up to gently run her tongue across his half-open lips.

"Jess is waiting, remember?" she murmured into his mouth.

"Nooooo…" This time the groan was distinct dissatisfaction.

She looked at him, stroking his face. "Do you really have something for him? Or were you bluffing?"

He looked away, creasing his forehead. "Bluffing. I got nuthin'. He's gonna kill me. I'm sorry, I had to see you. I had to know you were OK."

"Don't worry."

She smiled, extricating herself from his arms. It was agony not to be touching her, he was shocked and bereft. She went over to a cabinet, retrieving a seamless metal box. She put it on a little waist-high table and proceeded to caress it with her fingers. Suddenly one side fell open. She continued to deftly manipulate the niche she had exposed, and the whole box opened flat like unfolded origami. From the now exposed inside, she picked up a small zip-lock bag filled with whiter-than-white crystals. She offered it to him."Give this to Jess. It will placate him for tonight."

Carlisle's hand would not move to accept it.

_Glass_. He closed his eyes. _God help me.  
>It's a bag of fucking <em>_glass__._ He felt nauseous with the rush of a hunger he had not had to face for a very long time. _I WILL resist now. It's all in my head. It's. In. My. Mind. And I control my mind. Pretend it's something else. Convince yourself._

"I know how hard this must be for you," she said sympathetically.

He looked at her sharply. _Is it that obvious? She can't know what I'm feeling. She knows nothing about me, my past..._

"You don't have to take it, but it will solve your present problem... with Jess, I mean."

_This girl is either very perceptive or I'm paranoid and misreading her innocent comments. But then, she lives with an addict, right? She can probably spot one a mile away..._

He forced his arm to mechanically present his open palm. She placed the tiny bag into it. He felt his knees weaken. _This isn't happening…_

"Make a little small talk, give it to him. As soon as he sees it, he won't care about anything else. And then..." she paused. "Come back to me." He looked at her in surprise. "That will keep him away for at least 24 hours." She smiled.

His hand closed around it, perhaps a little too tightly. He shoved his hand in his jacket pocket and let the packet drop. "Are you sure?" he asked hopefully.

"I'm sure of Jess."

She came close and kissed him again. He turned towards the door, slightly dazed, patting his pocket with its talisman that guaranteed his return to the only place he could imagine wanting to be. 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_**Go to the bottom of my profile, click on the link to read this story on my Live Journal home page – with photo illustrations!**_


	7. 7 Unbound

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 7**

He didn't remember getting on the elevator, pushing the buttons, exiting through the lobby. He didn't remember going to his car, entering it, starting it. He didn't remember turning onto Central and maneuvering through 5pm traffic. He'd driven all the way to the Canyon Bar, parked and killed the engine, completely disassociated. He looked around, dazed. He reached into his pocket, touching the little plastic sheath.

_God! How did I get here?_

"Here" was more than a place. "Here" was a state of mind accompanied by intense physical sensations: a burning in his core that he had not felt so distinctly since Chicago. Terrifying but also anticipatory. Temptation was a drug in itself. His hands twitched.

_There's nothing to be afraid of but yourself, Carlisle._ He drew the packet out with a closed fist, unable to even look at it.

She didn't know him, or she would never have put this thing in his possession. This snake nestled unsafely at his breast. Power and danger sheltered by his own weak, untrustworthy flesh. It seemed alive inside his fingers, a hideous bird of prey with a mythical seducing voice that called to him through his skin, goading him to open his hand, to see her, to say her name, to taste her, to know her, to mate with her.

The bliss she promised was no exaggeration. When he was on a run he was invincible. His mind functioned perfectly, his body following in perfect sync. He could do his job swiftly and accurately, with a high level of interest and motivation. He had infinite energy. And the sex… he had been able to stay hard for so long, no performance issues… the orgasms just so intense... his recovery time so short. It was the way life ought to be. _Fire stolen from the fucking gods, man._

_Remember __both__ sides, Carlisle. Never forget the crash._

When his body would finally give out after three, five, seven fucking days of running, he would pray for unconsciousness. He drank, smoked weed, gobbled Motrin. He remembered ransacking friends' medicine cabinets for _anything_ to numb the pain, to bring him down. He pilfered narcotics at the hospital.

_I was lucky, so lucky, I never got caught._

Crashing was a sledgehammer to your bones, your muscles torn by the gods' eagle, being eaten alive in agony – that was the price the gods exacted for stealing fire. But some part of his mind convinced him it was worth it. As soon as he recovered, the cycle began again.

Sleep healed you, but it took time. Days of missing work because you couldn't function. Days of bodily distress because you hadn't thought to eat anything but sugar when you were on a run. Then the crash hit, and you hurt so badly you couldn't drive to get food, couldn't even crawl to the kitchen to forage.

"There was no reality to pain when it left one, though while it held one fast, all other realities faded," said Rachel Field. The women he'd nursed in the maternity ward confirmed this. After the baby was born, they didn't remember the mind-bending pain – until the next birth.

_I want to remember._

He needed the memory of that pain to be the last doorkeeper on his will, the final deterrent when he felt helpless to stop himself.

He slowly spread his fingers, and his eyes confirmed what his body and his psyche sang in chorus. Here again was the friend, the lover, the life, the fantastic lie he had lived, embodied in these jewel-like, seemingly innocuous stones before him.

_Then again, maybe Dee knows exactly what she's doing._

Maybe this was a test. Maybe she wanted to see if he could do this simple thing without betraying her - betraying himself. Maybe she recognized him for what he was. Prometheus still chained to the fucking rock. Why should she take a chance with a guy who couldn't get past his own selfish cravings? She probably wanted to see if his own needs trumped his feelings for her. She was already bound to one addict, why waste her time on another? Unless…

Unless he proved to her he could stay clean.

_I underestimated her._

He felt sick to see himself in anything near the same light as Jess, someone so disgusting, so lost, so pitiful.

It was 5:30. Jess, if he was here… _of_ _course he's here…_ had already been waiting half an hour and was probably pissed off by now. _I've got to do this. Now._

Unable to stop the trembling in his hands or the desire that subverted his willpower, he opened the bag. _I'll just take a little. He'll never know, and neither will she._

He fumbled in the glove compartment for the film canister he kept full of antacids. He opened it with one hand, dumping the benign pastel-colored tablets onto the floor. So _so_ cautiously, he tipped the bag over the little container and let the pale rocks trickle into the bottom.

_What the fuck are you doing, Carlisle? This is just sick!_

He emptied a quarter of the bag, zipped it, then redistributed the contents with his fingertips. He closed the film container, shook it, listened to the rattle, then tossed it back into the glove compartment, slamming the door shut and locking it with the valet key. Dropping the bag back into his jacket pocket, he exited the car.

The bar was busy with the usual post-work crowd, but thankfully no one he knew well enough to have to greet. Rosalie was off today; instead, Jacob manned the bar. Full-blooded Jemez Indian, Jacob "Medicine Wolf" Black was tall & lean, muscled & silent - and minded his own business. Canyon Bar _was_ his business. If a customer got out of line, Jacob had no problem unceremoniously tossing them out, no matter how big they were. Without raising his voice or uttering a threat, he commanded respect.

Jess was not up at the bar. He was in one of the back booths looking just as irritated as expected. Carlisle sauntered back and slid into the booth.

"Where the fuck have you been?" growled Jess.

"I had some business to take care of. Chill, man. OK?"

Carlisle pulled Jess' cocktail napkin over and off the table into the seat. He reached into his jacket pocket, grasping the zip-bag, slipping it underneath the flimsy paper. He shuffled in his seat, glancing at the bartender, who was occupied at the far end of the bar, and casually pushed it across the table under his open hand.

Jess' heavy black eyebrows lifted in surprise. He covered the napkin with his own hand, then palmed it into his lap, took a look, and grinned. "Now _that's_ what I'm talking about…" he murmured. He looked up at Carlisle, an appraising, but considerably more accepting, expression softening his harsh features. "What do you want for it?"

"A hundred, man."

"Really…" Jess looked at him in disbelief. "That's… at least two hundred." He leaned towards Carlisle, who instinctively leaned the opposite direction in repulsion, yet trying not to be too obvious about how much he disliked the man.

"I know, I know… It's a heavy taste, but, I would advise you not to question a good thing…"

"_You_ advising _me_?" Jess smirked. "Well, alright... though I would prefer having the direct connection."

_You're a pig in shit right now, asshole._ Carlisle could feel the sheer greed – not to mention the hunger to fix - pouring off the man.

"You know I can't do that. Yet. I don't know you yet, and neither does he."

Jess studied him for a moment. "You're not a cop are you?"

Carlisle snorted.

"Answer the fucking question, man."

"No," Carlisle answered sincerely. "No. I am not a cop." He hesitated. "I'm just like you." He cringed to even voice such a comparison.

"No you're not." Jess countered, holding sharp eye contact. "You had your run once upon a time, but you're clean now. How long?"

Carlisle swallowed nervously. He didn't want to admit anything personal, anything real, to this creep. _The guy sure is brighter than he appears._

"About a year," he said finally.

"Why are you doing this?" Jess grunted suspiciously.

Carlisle paused again, put on what he hoped was his most sincere-but-seasoned expression and answered, "Because man, there isn't a day goes by I don't know what you're fucking going through."

Jess nodded.

_He bought it. Well, it's true, isn't it? A little truth makes the lie so much smoother._

Jess reached for his jacket, putting it on a little too hurriedly. "Well, thanks man. I owe you."

_No you don't,_ thought Carlisle with a shiver. But what he said was, "Sure, man, you'd do the same for me, right? Uh. I need the hundred."

Jess gave him a withering look. "Whatever you say..." He fished in his jacket pocket and threw a wadded bill onto the table. He got up and exited to the men's room.

Carlisle looked down at his hands to make sure they weren't giving his nervousness away. _Surprisingly steady. The epitome of calm. Fuck me._

He sat there for a minute until he was sure he was nobody's focus of attention, then pocketed the bill and got up to leave. He pulled out his cigarettes. He hoped no one wondered why he hadn't ordered a drink. Jacob eyed him as he passed the bar, but merely gave him a nod and went back to his drinking customers. When the outside door closed behind him, Carlisle heaved a sigh and almost stumbled with a dizzying sense of elation. _I fucking did it. Done!_

The short drive over to the Canyon Bar from the Omega had passed in an unconscious blur. On the drive back, time seemed elongated. Every stoplight conspired to delay him. Every car committed to impeding his progress. He couldn't wait to be with her again, the homecoming hero arriving to collect his accolades.

Finally, he was at her door.

Touch plate, listen for the chime, hear the click of the lock.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	8. 8 Tasting

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 8**

"Carlisle," she smiled. "That didn't take long."

_You have no idea..._

She drew him into the room.

She flipped the deadbolt.

The curtains were open.

_Twilight_.

He could see his rooftop at the hospital across the way. He imagined himself standing there against the wall, smoking, seeing the glow in this room, imagining what it would be like to be here.

_I can't believe I'm here now._

She had changed into soft shorts and a top that left an intriguing glimpse of waxen flesh above the waistline. Barefoot, she moved with confidence and strength, silent feline grace. His heart sped up a little with admiration and ... _intimidation?..._ as it does when you watch a wildcat in its own habitat.

_More lioness than woman... But there's really no categorizing her... I've never seen anyone like her..._

He allowed himself to be led to the futon on the floor. She had doubled a purple comforter over it and moved the coffee table to the wall. She removed his jacket. It seemed her hands never left him, the constant contact guiding him willingly into whatever her gentle will dictated. Once he was seated, she knelt between his knees, her thumbs symmetrically stroking his jaw, framing his cheeks, smoothing his eyelids.

"You need to relax," she whispered.

Her eyes never left his face as her hands dropped to the buttons on his shirt, manipulating them as adeptly as the pieces of her puzzles. She slipped the shirt from his shoulders. She ran her hands along the inseam of his scrub pants from knees to crotch. He swallowed in mute compliance and anticipation. She untied the loose pants, bidding him wordlessly to lift his hips as she slid them off. Her strong, no-nonsense hands guided him down and turned him over onto his chest. Once positioned, she removed his briefs, trailing the absence of the fabric with the touch of her palms on his skin.

He filled his lungs gratefully as she increased the pressure of her thumbs and lesser fingers, flowing upwards from his buttocks to his shoulders. Pulling up on his neck steadily with both hands, she stretched his spine.

"Thank you," he exhaled as she soothed and kneaded, "So much." Her hands maneuvered with sensitivity and dexterity – absolutely perfect for this task. She worked for ten minutes in silence, listening attentively to his breathing and the soft involuntary sounds of gratification deep in his chest, collecting clues to what pleased and comforted him.

"You're beautiful," came her disembodied voice near to his left ear. Her palms followed the masculine curves of his back, circling his shoulder blades, spreading the width of his ribs, traveling the knobby path of his spinal cord as it tapered to a sculpted waist and smooth, rounded buttocks. She lightly swept the hairs on his rose-undertoned skin; they glinted gold in the warm lamplight.

"You," he mumbled. "Beautiful."

He suddenly became aware that cool, taut lips had joined her hands in their journeying. A wave of goosebumps raised the flesh across his arms and legs, and there was no denying the rise of other flesh pressed into the satiny quilt. He groaned and tried to turn his head to face her - but she had other ideas. She straddled his hips with her cat-dancer's legs. Her hands continued their methodical ministrations, the new angle allowing her to massage more deeply. She bent over him, her clothed chest lightly pressing his naked back, teeth and tongue tenderly alternating with lips on the back of his neck.

She moved her mouth along the bottom of his hairline, combing his hair back with slow strokes of her fingernails. She ran the edge of her tongue around his ear then sucked in the velvet of his earlobe as he arched his hips underneath her.

She turned his head in her hands expertly, lifting her lithe frame so his body could follow, rotating beneath her. Now on his back, she settled on top of him again, her buttocks nestling his exposed hardness. He now had the pleasure of observing her, and an expression of bliss crept across his face as his eyes followed her sensuous movements.

"Take your shirt off," he prompted lazily, enjoying the slow, pleased smile that dimpled her face in response. But she made no move to comply. She massaged his muscles, hands splayed, moving in slow, elongated strokes across his diaphragm, his ribcage, burnishing the sinewy chest that glinted with a light scattering of golden hairs. She paused momentarily, putting her thumbs in her mouth. She resumed, lingering at his nipples, circling his areolas lightly with moistened thumbs, blowing on them until they prickled in response. His hands rose from his sides to grasp hers as his hips pushed up into her rear.

"Relax," she whispered. "You can let go."

She began to move rhythmically on top of him. Her hair rippled hypnotically as she rocked. His breathing escalated; his eyes closed irresistibly though he wanted to keep watching her labor over him. He felt her hand slip between her thighs to grasp him. Her cool grip continued the intense motion her hips had started. She hovered over him, dipping her head down to pull his bottom lip into her mouth. Colors and emotions washed over him with her kiss, accompanied by the pulsing surge of his orgasm. His body melted into the bed beneath him as the images behind his eyes faded to black.

The last thing he remembered before yielding to sleep was the violet flush on her pale cheeks, the vibrant contrast of her hair and the impossible blackness of her eyes.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_I've dreamed this before._

There beside him was the angel, the fiery hair, the impossibly white skin. Its eyes were closed, shadows dancing on the lids in the light of a candle-flame, as if the angel itself were dreaming. The closed lips, as beautiful as before, now glistened with a dark liquid, which had begun to drip from the mouth onto its marble chin. The liquid seemed alive. He wanted to lick the lips, to taste the substance from them.

He glanced the length of its body. Below its waist, as before, was the male part of it he remembered, now erect. He licked his palm generously, then encircled it, running his fist the length of it. The angel did not react, but he did, feeling his own hardness increase, reveling in the control he now exercised over this dream and this being. As he stroked the cock in his hand, his own pleasure grew.

He leaned down eagerly to touch the still lips with his tongue. The liquid _was_ alive, the sensation more than taste. He forced the mouth with his lips and suddenly, he was drinking.

There wasn't much fluid evident there, but he was drinking. He could feel it pouring down his throat, quenching a dryness he hadn't known was there until he started to swallow- and then he didn't want to stop. The taste was metal and earth, warm and rich, overwhelming all other sensations. It fed his hunger and his lust as well. It assuaged the nameless loneliness that had accompanied him for as long as he could remember.

He gave himself over to it. He knew he was crying, but he felt so perfect, so nurtured, so complete.

"Carlisle..."

_No! I don't want to wake up!_

Falling. 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

He opened his eyes. It took him a few moments to remember where he was. He was nude, but he had been covered with a blanket. He was alone.

The clouds had cleared while he slept, and moonlight poured in on him from the desert sky through the huge window.

She was beside him. He hadn't seen or heard her until that moment.

_I must be groggy. What time is it?_

"It's after midnight," she said, pressing his stomach gently. "Are you hungry?" His stomach growled on cue.

"Evidently!" he chuckled. _It's like she can read my mind. _She folded the blanket down to his waist,her hair sweeping heavily across his bare chest.

She turned to switch on a lamp on the little coffee table, revealing a plate of steaming spaghetti, a piece of garlic bread and a can of cola. She offered him her hands, and pulled him to a sitting position on the futon with seemingly no effort whatsoever. With the same fluid ease, she pulled the coffee table in front of him.

He looked down at the plate. "Aren't you eating?"

"Oh no. I'm fine. Go ahead."

He tucked the blanket around his waist and picked up the fork with a grin. He took a bite of the pleasantly hot noodles, and bit into the buttery bread. "Ummm... So good... you cook?"

"No!" she laughed. "Uh... Marie Callender." _What a delightful laugh. Deep, sincere, comforting._ "Frozen dinner, you know?" She made a face, meaning to look disgusted, but she only succeeded in charming him more.

"Oh!" he said sheepishly. "You don't like them? I live on frozen dinners." He held his fork in the air in front of him, pointed it at her accusingly, but with a smile. "Why are you so nice to me?"

She looked away shyly. "I like taking care of you. Anyway, this," she motioned to the food, "Is nothing special."

He reached to take her chin, turned her face to him. "What you did, earlier, here, to me, was definitely not nothing."

She said nothing, but it was clear the compliment pleased her.

"Dee, I have to ask you something. And I'm not saying this to be mean or weird... or… you know… ungrateful…" He took a bite of bread. She nodded, raising her eyebrows in question. "Do you, 'take care' of Jess too?"

She looked down at the plate and said with a straight face. "Jess bought them, and heats them up himself. But he's never here, and he rarely eats..." She broke into a grin.

"You know that's not what I mean..." She must have noticed the stiffening in his shoulders but he was pleasantly surprised she didn't overreact to the prying question he really had no right to ask. "Were you ever 'with' Jess?"

"If you mean sexually," she sighed. "Yes. A few times. When he's high, he can be very demanding." _I wonder if that's her way of saying abusive... _"There were times... I let him... when he had really gone out of his way to help me. Jess isn't my boyfriend, I told you that. He's useful to me, but, he lives his own life, mostly. The kind of life he's living right now – now that you gave him the stuff."

_I had to ask the damn question, but I really don't want to deal with the answer, do I..._

He downed the rest of the pasta in a few large bites, and stuffed the rest of the bread into his mouth as well.

She touched his bare shoulder. "Slow down!" she smiled. "So... tell me what happened at the bar."

Still chewing, he reached for his jacket, pulled out the money, handed it to her. "I sold it to him," he said with his mouth full. "I couldn't just hand it to him. He'd be suspicious."

She cocked her head as she gingerly accepted the crumpled bill. She peered at him curiously with a side glance. "You didn't try it?"

He choked momentarily. Her eyebrows shot up. He chewed, swallowed most of his mouthful and reached to open the soda. He took a swig, swallowed, coughed, then drank some more. He took a breath. "Why would you say that?" he countered.

She didn't respond, just looked down at her hands.

"I don't do that shit, Dee. I'm clean. I've haven't used for more than a year." She nodded, but didn't look up at him. _Fuck. I can't lie to her. I just can't. She sees right through me._ It wasn't cold in the room, but he pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and tightened it around his chest. "Dee, I - _Shit. Shit. Shit! _- I took some out of the bag. It's in my car. But I didn't use. I swear."

She raised those incredible green eyes to his and simply said, "I know." She slid the table away at an angle, dropping down in front of him in its place. She placed his palm on her face, and continued to look at him in silence. _So perfect... my God! What an angel! Don't fucking blow this, Carlisle! You are such an idiot!_

"How could you know?" he asked gently. "You don't know me. You don't know what I'm capable of."

She kissed his palm, whispering into it, "I know what you think you're capable of. You're not an idiot. And I'm not perfect, or an angel.

He pulled his hand back from her. Her expression was almost pleading. "And you're not going to blow it. I won't let you."

"What the fu-," he began, staring at her. "How the -? It's like you're reading my mind."

"Yes." She said simply. She waited to let it sink in.

"No," he said finally. "That's not possible." _It's just a head game. She's upset I took a cut. She's getting back at me._

"Yes. It is possible. I'm not playing a game. I'm not upset. I care about you."

She waited and watched the gamut of his expressions. She waited as he ran back through their conversation and found evidence he hadn't noticed or hadn't believed before. She'd been through this with others. Best to just let them take their time. It was always a shock at first. They felt invaded.

"There's something else I want to tell you," she said after a minute. He looked up at her sharply, a little paranoid, but she pressed on. "I saw you the first day you saw me." She pointed out the window. "On the roof."

His eyes widened, he was trying not to remember the thoughts he'd had that day… because then she would know… he had fantasized about her.

"It's OK, Carlisle. I could hear your thoughts that first day." He closed his eyes in embarrassment. "And every day afterwards. Even when you couldn't see me. I could see you up there. I could hear you." He opened his eyes, shaking his head.

"That's how I knew you were attracted to me. That's why I was confident when I approached you in the games store. That's why I came to the window after you dropped me off. I knew you were watching from outside. I could hear you." He put his hands in front of his face in shame, but she continued. "I took off my hood so you would see my hair - and know who I was." She took his hands from his face. "I wanted you too."

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and fell slowly back onto the quilt. She finished drying them with her thumbs and kissed his eyelids.

"Stay with me," she whispered. "Please. Stay."

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	9. 9 Merging

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 9**

"Stay."

"Of course I'll stay."

_How can I refuse?_ There was something in her voice that chilled him as he remembered the violence he'd glimpsed the first time he saw her at her window. Jess. There was also a grave timbre in her voice that held promise the time would be far from wasted.

"I'll need to call in sick," he nodded his head towards the hospital, "after 5am."

"Do you want to rest more now?" Dee nestled down beside him. "It's OK if you do. I like watching you sleep."

_It's the strangest thing.._. _I should feel protective _of_ her, but instead, I feel protected _by_ her._

"Don't you feel sleepy?" he asked, yawning.

"I sleep in the day," she giggled. "You know that."

He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks again. "Can you actually hear or see everything I'm thinking?"

"Sometimes," she said lazily, brushing her cheek and eyelashes against his chest, inhaling the scent of his skin absentmindedly. "You know those times you actually form the words in your mind but you don't say them? You know how you hear yourself thinking actual words? Well, when people do that, I can hear actual words. But when people think in concepts or images, I just get impressions. I am interpreting their signals, and since my brain and perception and perspective is completely separate, I don't always understand the way the thinker does, especially if it's something I've never encountered before.

"Right now," she half-closed her eyes, the green retreating again as the black of her pupils expanded, "You are saying to yourself the words you want to speak out loud to me, but there's... another layer..." She looked smug and amazingly sexy, if a bit predatory. "A part of your brain is not thinking in words – is it? It's visualizing your hands moving underneath my shirt... and elsewhere..." He groaned and shifted so more of him was pressing against her through the thin blanket, "and how I will react, and how your body will react..."

"I'm not sure I like that," he frowned, as her hand moved down his chest, then underneath the blanket. "I mean..." he trailed off as she stroked his abdomen and hips with the tips of her fingers.

"Funny, I don't hear any words now," she mused teasingly, inching the blanket down so he could see where her hands roamed, her long nails alternately caressing, then pulling at his skin hungrily. He was still naked beneath the blanket, and his heart sped up waiting to see how much she intended to uncover.

"What you do to me... I've never... I can't explain..."

"Let go of the words. Just feel," she intoned, her lips dragging across his belly. His shallow panting was suddenly thunderous in the insulated silence of the room, his body rising to meet her hunger with his own. She turned her hand, the smooth back and ridges of her knuckles sampling his even more delicate skin as it descended to nestle between his legs, pressing, stroking, so lightly upwards against his testicles.

Deja vu. The dream. The rolling of the palm. The open thighs. She kissed him. The dream was upon him again, but in her mind now as she kissed him and reflected it back to him. She seemed to be using the image of his angel from his mind as she gently and persistently drew him into arousal. Confusion rose in him momentarily, threatened to break the delicious coiling spiral, but her lips were on him, her tongue in their wake, and the vision swept all other thoughts from his head.

The pale, fire-haired creature bent over him, its cool, moist mouth encased his cock, drawing him into itself. They became entwined. It held him there as waves of pleasure and deep color breathed through him. There was a sense of determination to accept the desire it kindled in him, to seize what it offered him, to appreciate the satisfaction of capturing and being captured, the underlying terror entangled in tenderness, tempering all instinctive warnings.

As in the dream, he saw its maleness. As in the dream he accepted the being as other and as self. He felt a mild curiosity, but certainly no objection, reaching out to caress it with the fever of wonder. But he couldn't reach its flesh. He relented the effort, let himself be consumed, devoured both by its demanding hunger and the twisting burning of his wanting.

_Have I forgotten to breathe? _The growl that seemed to start in his groin and rise through his organs, expanding in his lungs, testified he was most enthusiastically breathing as she brought him to orgasm with the subtle movements of her throat. He arched into her; she held him in place. The moan that accompanied his exhalation allowed her any liberty, any whim, as all muscle tension dissolved into the surface below.

The dream-like vision faded as her mouth left him and her weight moved down his legs. The ultra-softness of a cheek grazed his too-sensitive cock, then a smooth, heavy tongue lingered at its base, basking in the smell and taste and warmth of him.

His fingers grasped her head through the wild fall of her hair. He wanted to say her name, but he couldn't remember it, couldn't voice it. He looked down through half-closed eyes to see his own glistening chest, copper locks splayed out upon the carnal pillow of his loins.

He listened in stillness as the rhythm of his heart sought a normal pace, as the uncommon tendrils of realized bliss infused his limbs, then dissipated as common strength returned to them. When breath synced with heartbeat, he spoke.

"I want to touch you."

Slowly her hands came to life, gathering her hair from its wanton scattering on his flesh. She looked up at him, the darkness that had suffused the glorious green irises already half-faded.

"Come here," he said, opening his arms, begging the closeness he craved. She rose and lay beside him, the soft cheek now at his breast, brushing his nipple, the weight of her head so pleasurable against it. Her palm covered his other nipple, then moved down his ribs, insistently pulling him towards her. She took his wrist, placing his hand on her hip to complete the embrace. She held him there firmly, at the same time delicately tickling the back of his hand.

He cradled her back, skimming the surface of her shirt, the slight curve at her waist. He slipped his fingers under the waistband of her shorts. She stiffened. He smiled slightly, removed his hand and reached up to turn her face to his.

"I want to see you - all of you," he said. It wasn't a demand, but it certainly wasn't a request. His boldness seemed to surprise her a little. He didn't know exactly why, but it pleased him to unnerve her.

"I want to know you better… first," she said in a low voice.

He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her incredulously. "How much better?" he laughed. "You've pretty much had the run of my body so far."

"It's different for me," she said, her brow creasing briefly.

"How so?" he countered. _I'm not letting her insecurities get the best of her… I know her breasts are small. She's just being over-sensitive._

"I'm afraid. Afraid to move too fast. Afraid you won't like me. Afraid you'll leave me. I'm different. It's not because of my breasts…"

"I like you _because_ you're different."

She sighed. He reached down, unbuttoning the first button of her blouse. She grasped the button placket on the shirt so he couldn't open it further. He smiled, and moved his other hand underneath her blouse from below. _OK. I'm ready to play…_ The sudden wetness in her eyes stopped him. _Oh Christ, tears? Give me a break…_

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Carlisle."

He paused.

_Has she been abused? But she seems so confident. She said she'd had sex with Jess - that right there took some guts. She's no fragile flower. What's the issue?_

"Are you… physically OK?" he asked, confused. "Is that why you're shy?" _Maybe she has a deformity?_

She snorted sarcastically, her look turned defiant. "No. I'm fine. Just fine. No 'deformities'."

He blushed. _Real smooth, Carlisle. You are just an ace charmer, aren't you?_ He shifted away from her, removed his hands, made sure he wasn't touching her.

She sat up and leaned against the wall, bringing her knees up in front of her chest protectively. She was trying her best to appear composed, but he wasn't convinced.

"I'm sorry I got pushy," he said in a conciliatory tone. "I just … really like you."

She nodded offhandedly, not meeting his eyes, but a tiny hint of a crooked smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"I know you do. You can't hide it from me, remember?"

Carlisle shook his head. "You're stalling all my attempts to be romantic and mysterious, you know. This mind reading thing…"

She shrugged, with an apologetic smile, but a real smile. _Ah. I'm out of the doghouse. She's letting me back in. _She shook her head in amusement.

"Did you want to ask me something?" she suggested.

"Can I ask you something about Jess?" he ventured.

"'Kay," she answered.

"Well, the first time I saw you in the window… I saw something I keep wondering about…"

"Yes," she glanced up at him.

"Someone pulled your arm. They jerked you out of the window."

"Oh right."

"I was worried."

"I know. You needn't be, you know. Jess couldn't, I mean … he _wouldn't_ hurt me."

"So it _was_ Jess." Carlisle bristled.

"Yes. Nobody else comes here. He was upset with me. He'd just… well… done me a favor and… he wanted what I promised him. But I was listening to you…." she smiled shyly.

Carlisle stiffened. "And did you give him what you promised him?"

She just looked up at him through her eyelashes.

_Uh huh…_ "So. Is there anything I can do for you? So Jess doesn't have to do it – and be 'rewarded'?" It was difficult to hide the sarcasm in his voice. _And why should I hide it? She can hear it in my brain anyway…._

He realized he suddenly had her full attention. "I hope you _can_ help me, Carlisle. When we know each other better."

Carlisle's frustration was already evident to her from his thoughts, he knew that. He looked around for his clothes. He grabbed his pants and proceeded to shove his legs into them.

"How, Dee? How is that going to happen with Jess around?" He tied the string on his scrubs and looked her in the eye. "Do you have another stash of crystal to keep him busy? Oh! By the way, is this where he comes when he crashes?"

Dee nodded. "Usually," she whispered. He could see she was uncomfortable.

"You're in a relationship with this guy. A sick one, but it's still a relationship. You have a history and an understanding with him. Why are you coming on to me? True, I haven't exactly been resisting, but… what's the point? Do you want to be with him or with me?"

"I want to be with you," she said simply.

He put his head in his hands.

"Does he support you?"

"Don't be upset, please. Let me explain."

Carlisle crossed his arms and said nothing. _Why AM I so upset?_

"You're upset because you care about me," she said hopefully.

"Get out of my fucking head."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it. I have some control, but… it's harder to block when I have a bond with someone I care about…."

"I want some answers."

"The answer is no. Jess doesn't support me."

"Who pays for this condo?"

"I do."

_Not the answer I expected._

"I see. Trust fund baby?"

Dee smiled. "No. But I'm, how do you put it… comfortable."

Carlisle looked around him. "I should say so." He looked back at her. "Do you support Jess? I can't imagine that fucker contributes anything."

Her body language gave him the answer before she reluctantly voiced it. "Yes."

"What the hell for?" He grabbed his forehead as if in pain. "Don't tell me you support his habit too?"

"He helps me. I- don't like living alone. He takes care of certain things for me."

"You'd choose to live with a meth addict rather than alone?" He paused in frustration, thinking. _I really __don't__ know her, do I? Don't know what kind of fucked-up dysfunctional life she comes from. But now that I have some clue to her circumstances, as wrong as they are, I feel calmer. At least if I know the situation, I can try to help her._

"How do you know he wouldn't hurt you? He's a meth-addict, Dee. If he knew you had a stash hidden here, he'd hurt you to get it. You know that, don't you? What are you thinking?"

"I know. What you are saying is usually true. But you have to trust me on this. Jess is no threat to me."

"I don't understand. Help me understand."

"I can't, Carlisle. Not yet. You and I need to know each other better."

"Great. Now we've come full circle." He threw up his hands. Words weren't getting him anywhere.

He moved over closer to her. He touched her shoulder. She unwrapped one slender arm from her bent knees and covered his hand with hers. Encouraged, he slid closer, unwrapping the other arm from her knees, and gently straightening her legs. She yielded as he molded her body into his. In a few moments, he was spooning her on the futon, stroking her hair, kissing the shoulder he had touched. They did not speak for a long time. He couldn't stop his busy brain, though, and he guessed by the time he figured out what to say to her, she'd already have the answer ready. This aspect of the relationship would take some serious getting used to.

"Dee."

"Yes."

"Do you want to leave him? If so, do you need help leaving him? Do you want to come to my place?"

"Let me think about it. Give me a little time. Thank you for offering. There are things I have to deal with here."

"I know you say he won't hurt you, and you'll have to forgive me for having trouble believing that. But even if I did believe that, I have to ask myself – what would Jess do if he found me here with you? He'd try to hurt me. I'd have to defend myself. I don't know that I'm any match for him."

"He can't hurt you if I'm here. I won't let him."

"There you go again with the 'can't'. What magical power do you hold over this outlaw guy that you are so sure you control his violent behavior? It doesn't make sense."

"Carlisle, if you can just trust me right now, I promise you, this will work itself out. You have no reason to trust me, just that I ask you to. For now, can we just relax knowing he's gone and will stay gone for another day or so?"

"OK, I'll chill." Carlisle smiled. _Foolish foolish foolish…_

"Not foolish," she giggled.

"Stop doing that," he reprimanded as he hugged her closer. _She has no breasts at all. She's probably defensive about that… _"Oh, God," he blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"Does it matter a great deal to you?" she asked.

"You matter a great deal to me." Carlisle yawned and stretched.

"You need more rest, I'll let you sleep."

"No. I can stay awake until you sleep," he yawned again, blatantly belying the claim. "You wanna lay here with me?"

"You stay awake? Not likely," she laughed. "But yes, I would like to lie beside you and hold you. Why don't we move into my room?"

He looked at her carefully for a moment, assessing the proposal. He nodded. He gathered his shirt and shoes. She led, he followed.

Entering her room was like entering a cave. Utter blackness. _Of course, it's the interior of the two bedrooms, so it has no window._ She flipped on a low-wattage Japanese paper lamp. There was a simple mattress on the floor. _A bit minimal I'd say… for a woman anyway… maybe she hasn't bought a bed yet?_

He laid the clothes in his hands into a neat pile in the corner. He took off his scrub pants, folding and adding them. Clad only in his underwear, he lowered himself to the mattress. He opened his arms to her; she gracefully knelt beside him.

"Anything I can help you off with?" he asked, mock-seriously, running his hands with slow pressure down the sides of her shirted torso.

She shook her head, but indulged his teasing with an amused expression. She willingly molded herself into his embrace, drawing his solid arms around her as they stretched out together.

She combed the shining hairs on his arms with her nails, rewarded by the sudden change of speed in his breathing. He wanted to caress her chest and stomach, but deciding to respect her boundaries for the time being, kept his hands at play at only her neck, her face and her hair. Her scent calmed him, and he let go, let it carry him through layers of increasing opaqueness to a dreamless sleep.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Immortalis Caris Chapter 9 Page **12** of **12


	10. 10 Murder

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 10**

Awareness. Muffled voices. Blackness.

_This doesn't feel like a dream._

His mind was dull, ungrounded. He thought the streetlight outside must have died because there was no light at all through the window, not even stars. _Wait. Where's my window? Where's my alarm clock? The power's out._

His hand felt for the edge of the mattress, then ventured into space to touch the familiar nightstand next to his bed. But his hand touched…carpet.

His internal clock told him it was 4:30am, like every morning. Power or no power, light or no light, it was time to get up.

The voices. He could vaguely sense the tension, though they were not raised in anger. He recognized Dee's voice, and focus sharpened.

_I'm in Dee's bed._

The other voice volleyed. Adrenaline shot through him.

_Jess. FUCK! He's home!_

He fumbled off the bed to retrieve his clothes from the corner. He struggled to pull on his pants and shirt, leaving the shoes and socks off so he could walk more quietly to the door. It seemed closed but a thin sliver of dim light revealed it was ajar.

"They'll never trace it to me," Jess said.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore right now," said Dee softly.

"You think you're innocent? You're just as guilty as I am. You fuckin' sit there like none of it has anything to do with you!"

"Shut up, Jess. I've asked you civilly."

"If I have to leave town, you'll have to leave too. You need me."

"Don't flatter yourself. I can get along without you. It's you that needs me."

He laughed.

Carlisle didn't like the sound of it. He could tell how high Jess was by the tone of his voice, the manner of his speech. Years of unenviable experience made him capable of identifying all the small tics that took over the body when someone was on a run. The irony was, speed freaks always thought nobody could tell they were tweaking. They felt invincible and acted accordingly. _Not pretty._

Carlisle nudged the cracked door open a bit more with his finger, and as he did, Dee looked up. _She probably knew the second I woke up… _He couldn't see Jess from this angle, but he could imagine the greasy hair, the dirty fingernails, the rumpled clothing—the accumulated details that made it obvious you hadn't slept in days…

"You're high, Jess. If you scored, why are you here? Go play with your friends. That's what you want, isn't it? That's what you live for."

Jess crossed Carlisle's line of sight through the gap. His hair was wet. _He must have come back to shower and change._ He sat down next to Dee, proprietarily touching her as he spoke.

"Aren't you jonesin' for a drink? It's been four days," he said softly, but with an odd hint of menace.

"I'm fine," she said dismissively. Her expression was closed. She was giving him nothing.

"You still haven't given me what I need… after I got you what you needed…"

"I give you a place to live and pay your expenses. That's more than enough. Go find a whore to get yourself off."

He moved closer to her, started to caress her knee, then to move his hand up the inside of her thigh. "Nobody around here serves what you do, baby. I need a taste of what you got to offer."

Carlisle stiffened, but as it was clear Jess did not know he was present, and he didn't know if Dee wanted Jess to know… he kept silent. Dee did not seem threatened.

Dee calmly removed the hand and moved away from the man.

"I'm not your baby. And I'm not offering. You're high and you're horny. Anybody – hell, anyTHING, would do right now. It's almost dawn and I need to rest."

She stood and started to walk away from him. He grabbed her wrist to pull her down towards him. She whirled and snarled at him, an eerie, inhuman sound that sent a chill through Carlisle. Jess looked wary, but he didn't let go.

"Do not push me," she growled, extracting her wrist from his grasp with a twist. Carlisle tensed for action, and he almost came through the door to aide her, except that she turned to look at him sharply, shaking her head once to stop his advance. He could see her eyes had gone dark.

"What'cha gonna do, eat me, baby?" Jess smirked. "Talk about bitin' the hand that feeds ya…"

"Now that's tempting," she said in a low voice, flexing her hands, pressing her rather dangerous-looking nails into her palms.

"Oohh, I better watch my-self," he teased. "You look kinda hungry tonight… and did I mention, damn hot…"

Her muscles tensed into a defensive stance as she took another step backwards.

_Oh hell no! He will not touch her…_

"OK, OK. I'm leaving," he threw his hands up in mock surrender. He stood casually, picking up his jacket and turning towards the front door, never dropping that smug, superior expression. However, he suddenly turned on his heel, approaching her again with a cocky aggression. He reached out for her. She eluded him, scowling. "Just seems a shame to let such a prime piece of sweet ass go untapped."

_Slimy fucking tweaker!_

Carlisle could restrain himself no longer. He pushed the door open angrily. "Leave her the fuck alone! Now!" he commanded.

Jess flinched at the sound and turned towards him. When he saw who it was, his face lit up in a cruel smile. Dee was shaking her head vigorously at Carlisle. She hadn't looked distressed before, but she certainly did now.

"Well, well! If it isn't Mr. Clean!" Jess exclaimed. "Come to make sure my prime piece doesn't go to waste!" Dee quickly moved around to get between Jess and Carlisle. Jess tried to push her out of the way. He was unsuccessful. She resisted him quite effectively.

Carlisle, thrust forward against common sense by Jess' bravado, slipped around her protective stance to shove Jess' shoulder. "Get out! She doesn't want you, isn't that clear?"

Carlisle saw the ugly grin get just a little bit wider before Jess' fist slammed into the side of his temple. The next thing he remembered was a close-up view of the carpet, pain making nonsense of the sounds going on around him. There was Jess' voice - yelling. He wanted to get up, but his body wouldn't do what his head told it to.

Weight on his chest. _Can't breathe_. Someone on top of him. Another blow to his face. _Pain. Wetness._ Weight lifted. Pain restraining his will. Trying to move. Moving, but all wrong. Someone dragging him by his hair. Released. Trying to turn. Can't move. A blow to the diaphragm. Breath blocked, then suddenly gulping air.

"Don't make me hurt you!" someone said. He didn't want Dee to be hurt, but he couldn't help her. He couldn't see her.

He heard the bones in his chest crack before the slow fire moved through it. He felt more than heard his own cry, because to make a sound was to turn up the flame on the pain. So the cry melted into a moan, and a rush of endorphins flooded his senses in the wake of the terrible burning.

_…. must be in shock… thank God… at a distance from the pain… a witness but not a full participant… how funny… in whatever awful thing had happened… to me… did it happen to me?_

Suddenly Jess seemed to be on the floor beside him. There was something on top of him, attached to him, a creature of some kind. It moved very fast, and the noises it made were familiar, but out of context. These were sounds of an animal, not something you'd find in the city, in a high-rise condo.

It was so hard to process the thoughts. So hard to breathe.

Jess wasn't yelling anymore. He wasn't hurling angry words anymore. He was begging now, crying. The creature's hand grasped the denim-covered shoulder beside him, and then Carlisle saw its claws.

_Should be fingers,_ he thought distractedly, _and fingernails, but they look like claws_.

Jess howled, then choked as the hand twisted decisively. The sound of breaking bones reminded Carlisle he, too, was broken - he was pretty sure of that, but he couldn't quite remember where or how.

Jess stopped making noise. His eyes were glazed and he looked rather crooked as the creature licked his neck, hidden by the fall of its long, long hair. _So familiar._ Like her hair, but more like some other hair he couldn't quite place. This was wilder, as if it had a life of its own.

_Of course! _He smiled inside. _Like my dream angel. Yes. What a funny thing..._

The room was becoming indistinct. The pain was far, far away now, and he wanted just to close his eyes. He wanted to dream contentedly, his angel beside him, in his arms.

The creature raised its head to look at him through the tangle of its hair, its black eyes glinting like onyx stones in the half-light. Blood dripped from its mouth, its tongue snaking out to retrieve it. It lowered its eyes and head again and continued to drink.

_Oh! It_ _bit the bad man! Well, that's what the bad man deserves. When you're mean to people they will bite you. Daddy said so. That makes perfect sense._

He let himself sink into unconsciousness; the darkness folded over him as he fell, to the arms he knew were waiting to catch him.

_My angel can be frightening, but I don't have to be afraid._ _Because… because I am not a bad man. Oh No! My angel saves me_. _My angel loves me. I am my angel, and he is me._

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Chapter 11**


	11. 11 Feeding

**Immortalis Caris – Chapter 11**

He descended in slow motion through the liquid darkness, his body's pain just an idea to consider, not a present agony to endure.

His angel would make everything right.

The darkness changed, now infused with ultramarine light. He was solitary and safe, floating without time in a primitive amniotic deep.

He realized he was not alone after all.

Arms were around him, legs joining their embrace. Pale hands pressed upon him as they turned in tandem. The luminescent skin of a chest was in front of his eyes, and he drank in the lovely undulations of translucent flesh stretched taut over bones. Fragility and strength, strangeness and beauty dwelt harmoniously in this form that was his to possess – to have and to be.

They lay together in a still, quiet place. Its fingers crept over its own neck, drawing his attention to one violet-hued cord pulsing there. With one sharp talon it drew a vermillion line that expanded as it seeped, forming a shining, trembling bead on the flesh. Limbs drew him in closer. One hand of gentle claws wove through his hair to guide his head; the other parted his lips.

Tongue touched. Taste translated to chemical current, coursing vibrant promise through every artery and capillary. The mechanics of the rush were familiar.

_More._

He pressed his mouth to the other's skin, drew in a mouthful of blood, his tongue now awash. He swallowed and the rush came again but this time with euphoric intensity.

_More!_

He drew again, savoring texture and temperature on the insides of his cheeks, on the walls of his throat. He could hear his own heart beat. A tingling swept his chest, and he gasped anticipating pain. The second before his nerves could report and his brain could scream, fear was dispelled by the cognizance that he was being healed, not rent.

_Feed._

His body overrode his brain, taking what it needed, disregarding analysis, rejoicing in its reliance on instinct alone, infantile in its greed for satiation… pleasure.

"I told you so," his body said to his mind. "You've forgotten what happiness feels like. You don't give me what I need any more. I have to take it for myself. Fuck your education and your morals and your reason! You're not fit to be in charge. Why would you want to be when I can give you this?"

Whether the dream ended as he slipped deeper into slumber, or dreamless sleep overcame a waking bliss, he did not know, but the inevitable ebb into unconsciousness was most welcome.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

Awareness. Music. Blackness.

_This doesn't feel like a dream._

His hand felt for the edge of the mattress, then ventured into space to touch carpet.

_Déjà vu._

Except - he felt incredible... a rare lightness of being.

_What the fuck happened?_

The door opened slowly. Moonlight. A familiar long-haired silhouette in a kimono robe.

"You don't remember?" it whispered.

_Dee._

"Yes."

"I- I remember, but I don't understand."

"We need to talk."

_Talk. Yes. Talk._

"Come."

He rose easily from the mattress on the floor. He suddenly remembered the sound of cracking ribs. He grabbed his chest as if to support it, preparing for sharp pain… but there was none. Only a very slight soreness, almost pleasant, like the ache after exercising. He carefully felt his jaw and the side of his face. No bruising that he could feel. No dizziness.

He walked into the silver light from the picture window. The entire world had gone white. The snow had finally come.

_How long have I been asleep?_

"Thirty-eight hours."

"What!" he exclaimed aloud, shocked by the loss of so much time, but also jarred that she answered his internal question_._

"You were hurt. You had to heal."

"A day-and-a-half! Are you kidding me? Wh- why didn't you take me to Emergency? Oh my God! Work! I didn't call in! What…"

"How do you feel?" Dee asked softly.

"Ummm… OK… I think…" he looked down at himself distractedly. "I thought I broke… I don't know… Did I…? Oh God!" He looked around the room. "What happened to Jess?"

"Jess is gone," was the calm reply.

"There." She pointed to the entryway. Something large was wrapped in a blanket next to the door.

"Oh fuck!" He began to pace. _Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_ "Did I…?" he asked in horror.

"No. I did."

He stared at her.

"You killed Jess?" he asked in awe.

"He was going to hurt you. I couldn't allow that."

"Jesus! Dee! Are you insane! What are you thinking? Oh my fucking God!"

"Calm down, Carlisle. It's fine."

He just shook his head. "Self-defense…"

"Well, in your defense..."

"…but you didn't call the cops, and now he's been dead two days!"

"I couldn't."

"Why? Why the hell not? Do you have drugs here? Are you hiding from the police?"

_She is remarkably calm, like she's… done this before… oh Christ, I'm going to be sick… and I have no privacy in my own head…_

He looked up at her. She smiled wanly, but had the grace to keep her eyes averted.

"How? How did you kill him?"

"I broke his neck. You were there."

"YOU, broke HIS neck? Give me a break. What are you, a black belt or something?"

"Or something," she echoed.

"I remember him punching me in the face… I remember him falling... I remember you on top of him…" He shook his head. "And then I think I had a concussion, because I saw some weird shit…"

"You remember hearing his neck break," she whispered.

He gasped at the memory of that sound. It brought the incomprehensible visuals back much too clearly.

"You remember... me on top of him."

_No. No. That wasn't real. That was me dreaming._

"You weren't dreaming."

"I saw you - but it wasn't you - biting him. There was blood on your, I mean, its face…."

"Yes..."

"Like it was drinking his blood…"

"Yes…"

"What do you mean, 'Yes'? How can that be true? Unless you and Jess were into some really kinky shit…"

"Carlisle. I need you to understand something. It's important. Please look at me."

He forced himself to be still. He looked her in the eye.

"I need blood to live. Yes. I took Jess's blood. Do you understand?"

He frowned, but said nothing.

"I had to kill him to save you. His blood did not go to waste."

"You're serious," he said, feeling betrayed because she must be, he hoped she was, playing some kind of game.

"I have never lied to you. I am not lying now. Only Jess knew about me."

He took an instinctive step backwards. He couldn't stop himself. Belief and revulsion were evident in his expression.

"Is that all you eat?" he asked with a grimace.

She smiled. "I'm afraid so." She approached him cautiously. "I'm still the same person, you know. I haven't betrayed you."

"B- but how do you get it?"

She just looked at him.

"You KILL people?" he asked incredulously.

"Jess finds them... or rather, he found them. Evil people."

"Like Jess."

"Much worse, I assure you. I read their minds. You would not believe who is walking in the street right beside you every day. The things people have done... if you knew... you would be afraid to go outside. Most have never been caught."

"You're like... like some kind of vampire vigilante?"

"You could look at it like that." She actually laughed.

"Jess got rid of the bodies for you. That's how he helped you..."

"Yes. He drove them out into the Indian lands where the scavengers could take their spirits back to the earth. As it should be. But... he has been distracted lately. Two of them were found."

"He was too strung out..." Carlisle nodded. "Why bring them here? Why not go out to where they are?"

"I can't be exposed to direct sunlight."

"So you go out at night."

"I do. But I can't just leave a trail of bloodless bodies where we live. Jess helped me."

Almost more amazing than the information she was imparting was the matter-of-fact way with which she delivered it. Her dispassionate manner did help him cope, but there was something else nagging at him. Her voice sounded different to him, almost as if it was resonating in his own chest. Inescapable. He felt unable to reject anything she was saying, though doubts screamed to be voiced. What she was saying was barely rational, but there was something irresistible about her that hadn't been there the day before. If she said it, it must be so.

_What the hell happened? Something has fundamentally changed here._

Silence.

"So, you really can't help it?"

"Being the way I am? No. Needing the blood? No."

"What happens if you don't get it?"

"I will die."

"What happens if you eat food?"

"My body won't accept it. Same result."

Silence.

_Damn. You are aware this is a lot to ask someone to accept, right? _He meant for her to hear that. _She damn well better._

"Yes," she said. "I know." There was a note of hope in her voice.

He put his head in his hands. "I need time to think."

He stood up, then went to the bedroom to put on his shoes and socks. He came out of the room and headed for the front door, grabbing his jacket. Pointedly avoiding the sight of the lump that was Jess' body in the hall, he started to open the door. He hesitated, then closed the door and came back into the living room.

Dee leaned on the wall by the window. She looked so forlorn there. S_o damn enticing! I don't have a chance! _He came up to her and took her in his arms. He had the sinking feeling, against his better judgment, he would be able to refuse her nothing.

She knelt down in front of him, trailing her long fingers down the front of his shirt. Distinctly uncomfortable, unquestionably aroused, he reached down to lift her up, but instead, she grasped his wrists and lowered him to his knees facing her. She took his face in her hands.

He couldn't look away from those eyes. He had always found them unique, but there was something more now, something that locked him in, something that claimed him. The color of arctic ice, yet they burned him. Impossible cold fire in that impossibly perfect face.

"I can give you a new life," she stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "I took care of Jess. I can take care of you." She ran her thumb along the curve of his lips. "I am free of him now." His lips opened in obedience to her touch. "You and I are free to be together." He tried to close his eyes, to break the hold of her spell, but he could not. Or would not.

"Carlisle, I know you are not happy in Los Alamos. I know you're not happy in your job. I really do – I hear what is in your head. Be with me. Be my companion. We can share our lives. We belong together. Jess was in the way. And now – he is not. Help me."

A tear slipped down his cheek, as he clenched his fists in frustration. He tore his eyes away from hers. _Be careful what you wish for._

"You can have what you wish for." He made a small sound, but heavy with the emotions he held tight inside. "This is your chance. You are a good man. You deserve more. Be with me."

He scrambled to his feet and fled the room.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Chapter 12**


	12. 12 Committing

**Immortalis Caris – Chapter 12**

He had the cigarette ready before he got off the elevator. The moment he pushed through the condo doors, he lit it. He leaned against a pillar, inhaling with force, expecting the head rush he normally got after two days without one.

_Nothing. _

_Nothing?_ He just didn't crave the nicotine. He crushed it out after just a few drags.

_I need some air._

The frigid air was heaven. It took some serious effort to trudge through the drifts of fresh powder to his car, but his muscles reveled in it. _Gross motor, baby! I could walk home right now! _He compared the feeling to doing a bump and hitting that sweet state of... cruising speed in mid-run where you just HAD to move, to dance, to walk, to run... just couldn't sit still. Despite his restless state of mind over what Dee had just told him… _I feel… fantastic! _And with that delicious realization came the guilt of being high... and _loving _it. Close behind the guilt came the nagging voice that cautioned... _and when you come down, you'll be a shattered mess. You're destroying yourself. You're fucking eating yourself alive_. 

His car clock said 7:15._ A day and a half! Christ, Carlisle! Lost time? It's worse than being on a fucking run again! Get your shit together! Is any girl worth this?_ _You need to bathe and change your stinking clothes! You totally spaced out work!_ _You are so gonna get docked for this!_

He drove to his end of town on roughly plowed and salted streets. No attempt had been made to clear or treat the little street to his house, of course, but by staying in the tire tracks of an enormous SUV that had passed that way, he was able to make it to his driveway.

The fresh snowfall almost made his dingy neighborhood look respectable. The little 1940's clapboard boxes looked quaint, even homey, adorned in white. It temporarily covered the haggard face of bad original construction and half a century of neglect.

He stood on the front porch for a moment before he opened the front door. The moan of the hinges echoed the cry in his chest that he refused to utter. He stepped inside; it smelled like stale cigarette smoke and microwave plastic. He turned on the light and his brain clicked into automatic. He shucked his shoes inside the door, and made his way into the dark bedroom. He hit the overhead light switch and moved to empty his pockets onto the dresser. He stripped off his clothes and dumped them unceremoniously into the hamper outside the bathroom door.

He stood under the hot water, letting it scald the last two days from his body. He visualized confusion being shed like dead skin cells with the force of the shower, the heat soothing the sharp edges in his brain. He felt safer, calmer, blessedly alone in his own space in his own head.

He inadvertently crushed the bar of soap in his fist. He opened his palm under the downpour to watch in amazement as the suds blossomed and overflowed.

_What... has happened to me?_

_I was hurt, then I was healed._ _I had an unbelievable dream that somehow feels like it really happened. Now I'm different, stronger than before. Physically. Mentally. My senses are wide awake, super sensitive... hungry for stimulation…_

_And Jess is dead._

_A man died because of you, Carlisle! You wanted her, and now you can fucking have her! The obstruction is gone, dude!_

_But Jess wasn't the only thing stopping me. I was stopping myself..._

_This blood thing. I don't get it. Some kind of medical problem? Some kind of mental problem?_ _I can't change it, can I?_

_I should be freaking out - and I am -_

_But I'm_** not.**

_Goddamnit! I __know__ what I want. I know __who__ I want._ _I've never been this fucking sure about anything. I've held myself back and wallowed in self-pity because I had a fucking jerk of a father. He's __not __taking this from me. I __don't__ have to be alone._

He turned off the water and stood there as it dripped off of him, steam rising from his skin. The sound of drops hitting the porcelain was musical, a delicate symphony, rich, textured, full. The hollow percussion of water flowing down the drain was accompaniment. _My hearing's been affected too… amazing!_

_What's your gut telling you, Carlisle? Go to her. Help her. Be what she needs. Dee is what you need. Trust this. For the first time in your sorry life, commit, you motherfucker!_

He grabbed a towel, drying himself while staring into the grainy, yellowing mirror.

He saw the cheap carpet, the drab, thrift-store furniture, the lack of anything personal or unique. Nothing that inspired any interest in living. This place he called 'home' closed in on him, underscoring the loneliness he so carefully suppressed and rationalized every moment of every day.

No one could possibly hear him now, so he vocalized the sound that was expanding inside him, rising, now unchecked by the availability of privacy.

"I don't want to be here!" he howled, raw and vital.

"I don't want to be alone!" he railed at the blank TV situated between the buckled wallpaper and moth-eaten beige drapes.

_Jess's body. Have to get rid of it. That's the first step. From there, we'll figure it out, Dee. We'll figure out the rest of this strange shit..._

He stalked back into the bedroom and grabbed his cell from the bed. He dialed the Nurses' Exchange.

"This is Carlisle Cullen, LVN… first shift… Yes. I'm calling in… Taking personal days until next week… Family emergency… That's right, I've already been out two days… Couldn't be helped… Yes, please give my apologies to the Registry scheduler... I'll be in touch if I need more time… Uh huh… Thanks."

Click.

_Wow. That was so easy. It's amazing what you can get away with when you act like you're entitled to it!_

He took a gym bag from the closet and packed what he didn't put on: jeans, sweatshirts, toiletries, towel, long underwear, socks, boots.

He shut off the lights and turned on the radio on his way out. Snow showered the edge of the porch when he slammed the door.

_Let's do this._

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 

She was waiting for him in the lobby.

_Of course_. _Doesn't surprise me._ _I've been mentally shouting all the way across town._ _What is her range, anyway?_

She handed him a set of keys. "You're driving."

It was a little disappointing and a lot unnerving not even to have the satisfaction of telling her he had decided to help her. He sighed. _Get used to it, Carlisle!_

He followed her back to the elevator where she pressed B for the basement parking. Upon exiting, she glanced briefly at him, then at the remote in his hand. He pressed it, there was an answering click and a flash of utility lights from the corner space. Jess's truck. Black and new, it was one of those American-made, macho dick-compensation monsters. He smirked as they climbed in.

"OK. Where to?"

"Down."

He started the engine and carefully spiraled the enormous vehicle to the third basement where the trash, laundry and storage areas were.

"Pull up next to the dumpster."

She hopped out, rolled back the aluminum truck bed cover and opened the trash bin. She beckoned him to reverse into the space next to it. She stepped up into the bed of the truck, then bent at the waist to reach into the bin. He realized with startled unbelief what she was going to do a second before she did it.

She pulled the tightly tied lump of blanket that was Jess into the bed of the truck in one swift movement. It was difficult to believe what he was witnessing, but there it was—she had lifted dead weight twice her own size and tossed it into the truck as if it were a sack of stuffed animals, not a 200-plus pound man.

_Now is not the time for questions, Carlisle._

Securing the bundle against the front of the truck bed, she jumped out and closed the cover. She opened the passenger door and swung her body in.

"Jesus, Dee!"

"Drive, please," she said serenely.

He drove. Forward motion was so much easier than attempting speech. As soon as they were clear of the building onto Trinity Drive he stammered, "Wh-what did you do, shove him down the f-fucking _trash _chute?"

"That's one of the reasons we chose this building," was her placid response.

_Oh God! I don't even want to think about it!_

"Don't think, just drive."

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Chapter 13**


	13. 13 Trusting

**Immortalis Caris – Chapter 13**

There was hardly any traffic on Highway 501 West heading out of Los Alamos. The plows had been through once, the road was manageable, but the snow intimidated the desert people. _This? This is nothing. Piece of cake._

Carlisle had grown up in Wisconsin winters - learned to drive in a blizzard in an old stick-shift pick-up. He had been under legal age – 14 in February that year – but Dad had been sick with jaundice and he just didn't have a choice. _Or did I? What would my life have been like if I had just let him lie there and die?_

He turned his mind back to the road and the task at hand. _I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I'm driving the dead body of my rival out to the country to dump it. I'm a nurse! I'm supposed to hold life sacred. Who __am__ I and how did I become this person?_

He looked over at his passenger, who said nothing, but acknowledged his thoughts with compassion behind a crooked smile. It made his heart ache in a way he imagined others knew well. But this was all new to him. Nobody had ever looked at him quite like that.

_She has no idea what she does to me. The first time I fall in love, and this is what I chose? You are out of your fucking mind, Carlisle._

_Oh shit._

He was afraid to look at her again, embarrassed. Her hand reached over to gently cover his, and she squeezed it. She continued to look out the window, but the smile had grown a little fuller.

"I might as well just say everything out loud, right? I will never get used to this!"

She pointed to the road ahead. "Carlisle, turn here."

"Camp May Trail? Where are we going exactly?"

"Jess wanted to return to Indian land when he died. I would like to do as he wished."

He swung the truck swung right, onto the unplowed mountain road, leaving the main highway behind. The headlights were now the only illumination other than the moon and their reflection off the snow.

"You sure picked a hell of night to go trekking!"

Despite his wariness, the truck's tires handled the road confidently, without slippage, as if delighted to have some real challenge other than paved city streets for once. He shifted in his seat and got a firm, comfortable grip on the steering wheel, keeping a steady speed at what he supposed was the dead center of the two lane road. Without visible lines, he figured he'd just center the vehicle between the guard rails and the mountain sides as they climbed.

"He was Native American, then?"

"His mother was. His father was white. He never knew his father."

_That could be a blessing._ "And you? Did you ever know your father?"

"I was taken from my parents when I was an infant. That's all I was told. I don't remember either one of them."

"Oh. Who raised you?"

"Who... or what..." she murmured. "My guardian was called Nukpana by the locals. It means "evil" in the Hopi language, but there's a kind of respect behind it. She wasn't evil, she was just - a completely different creature from them. She was considered very powerful. The few people we came in contact with called her a medicine man, but... the clearest thing way to describe her is... she was... like me." She glanced at him to ascertain his response. "She raised me as her daughter until I reached a certain age, and then she changed me."

"What do you mean, 'changed you'?

"She made me different, like she was."

"You mean... the thing with the... blood."

She was silent for a pause, then answered, "And other things..."

It was his turn to hesitate. "What sort of 'other things', exactly?"

They drove on for a minute, the truck's hard-working engine comforting in its strong and reliable thrumming as they peered into the stark alien landscape outside the glass.

"Strength, for instance," she offered.

"Yeah, I noticed," he laughed. "I remember wondering how on earth you could knock Jess to the floor. I thought I had imagined it. But I didn't imagine that, did I?"

She didn't answer.

"Is your grip as good as your lift? It's a little intimidating considering..." he cleared his throat, "considering the way you handle me ... considering the way you manipulate those delicate puzzles... you must have a lot of control."

"Yes," she smiled. "I have developed control - over time."

"What else?"

"Well, I don't injure easily, and I heal very quickly."

"Did you do something to me when Jess hit me? Did... did you give me medicine?"

Her eyes seemed to glint at him in the half-darkness. "I think you know the answer to that already, Carlisle."

"No l don't," he shook his head in denial. "No."

"Acceptance gets easier with time," she said in a low voice.

She felt his mood shift as he wrestled with the memory of drinking her blood. He was putting the truth together, and he wasn't handling it well. Her nostrils flared. She casually covered her nose and mouth with her hand. She sensed his heart was speeding up, his skin temperature changing, his breath escalating.

She didn't wait for his next question, but tried to guide the conversation to achieve a more neutral emotional field, hoping to distract him.

"My senses are different... hearing, touch, taste, smell, sight... all quite keen..." As soon as she finished the sentence, she knew she had made it worse. She felt his defenses rise. She could taste his adrenaline in the air.

"Like an animal?" he said guardedly. The wildcat-like metaphors he had applied to her suddenly seemed very literal, and though he tried to push it away, the image of the creature he had seen on top of Jess invaded his mind in disjointed flashes, in terrifying detail. "Like a predator..."

His brow furrowed. Dread crawled across his skin. He tried desperately not to let his fear form words in his mind, but... the harder he tried, the clearer the words came... _Fuck._

"There's no reason to be afraid, Carlisle."

_Fuck me._

"Stop, Carlisle."

His foot hit the brake. His hand went to the door handle. He gripped it tightly so the shaking would not show, but he knew she could smell his fear.

"Calm, _caris_, calm," she urged. She reached out to touch him. He drew in a sharp breath and flinched. "I would never hurt you," she whispered.

"Oh really?" he struggled to keep his voice steady. "Did you ever say that to Jess? You hurt _Jess_. You _killed_ Jess."

"You know why I had to do that."

"Yeah. You were hungry."

"No. That wasn't the reason."

"Are you hungry now?" he asked in a whisper. He held himself stiffly in place, restricting the flight response by sheer force of will. _You are in the middle of fucking nowhere, Carlisle._

"Absolutely not. Stop this, Carlisle. Please."

She reached for the passenger window button and lowered the glass. The cold air hit him like a slap, but it helped. He felt more in control. He gained the presence of mind to put the truck in Park.

She opened her door, and stepped out into the snow. She slowly backed away from the truck. He eyed her every step. She lowered her head and spread her arms at her sides, palms out - a pacifying gesture.

His heartbeat started to slow. He took deeper breaths. She looked up, but didn't look at him directly. She hazarded a couple of steps towards him, then paused, tasting his reaction. He remained stable, so she approached. He was still shaking and his teeth were beginning to chatter, but she knew it was from cold now, not from fear.

She approached cautiously but confidently, touching the open door, then pausing to meet his eyes. She smiled with her eyes alone, giving him time to adjust, to accept her presence on his own terms.

"It's cold, Carlisle."

The temperature didn't bother her at all, but he didn't know that. He was a fragile human who needed protection from the harsh elements. She lifted herself onto the seat, kicked the snow from her shoes and gently clicked the door closed. The heater was still running, and immediately began to re-warm the cab. Carlisle's body began to relax. She touched his hand with the back of her own. He didn't withdraw. She drew it slowly up his arm and over his shoulder. She touched his cheek, and he leaned his head almost imperceptibly towards her.

She turned to him, one knee on the bench seat, and leaned in to hover at his jaw with her lips and breath. He groaned and shifted, turning suddenly to take her mouth with his with an eagerness she hadn't quite anticipated.

This pleased her. She wasn't used to being surprised. Maybe he was already learning to block her, or maybe she had been distracted and hadn't tuned in. Maybe he was thinking without language - which was much harder to read.

As he tasted her tongue, she knew he was trying to read her the only way he knew how, and she smiled through the kiss. She gave him the images he sought - imbued with emotion - her affection for him, protectiveness of him, desire for a relationship. She fed him images of seduction, drawing from the fantasies she had collected from his mind. His body responded without hesitation, some evidence he had left behind the anxiety, and was willing to trust her again.

Her right hand entered his jacket, opened his shirt, then slipped smoothly under the long underwear to connect with his skin. He slid towards her and she moved backwards to allow him to free himself from the restriction of the steering wheel.

She straddled his lap, pushing the undershirt up to uncover his chest. She took each nipple in her mouth in turn, softly circling them with her tongue, squeezing them with pillowed lips. She licked upward across them, applying pressure and intensity. She unfastened his jeans, and he lifted his hips just enough for her to lower them to the tops of his thighs. She returned to his nipples, enveloping them in her mouth's soft wetness, sucking hard now, grazing them with her teeth until he whimpered - for mercy and for more - head thrown back against the seat.

She knelt on the floorboard between his legs, pulling him toward her.

Tongue and lips, hands and fingers, cheeks and nose all coordinated as she took him far, far from the restive state into which he had fallen when he had let himself doubt and fear her. She listened to his body, she attended every breath, sound and movement, playing him like an instrument. There was no denying his ultimate vulnerability; nothing in him wanted anything but what was offered in that present moment.

Finally, she took him deep, slowly encasing the tip of his cock in the wet, smooth tightness of her long throat. She held him there, not breathing, and he held his own breath in anticipation, waiting for movement to send another wave of excruciating pleasure through him. She swallowed, he gasped for oxygen. She hummed, his breath stuttered; his fingers dug into the plush upholstery until they hurt. She held him there, suspended in a cruel ecstasy.

He reached under her hair for the back of her neck and pressed forward very slightly, touching the back wall of her throat, voicing an almost incoherent "please..." She contracted her throat muscles, tightly holding his trembling legs as she drew his release from him.

She laid her head on his chest, and held him until he was able to function. He bent down to kiss the top of her head with something like reverence. She nuzzled into his chest for a minute, then lowered his undershirt, smoothing it against his body with care. She helped him dress, and though he actively participated, it was almost absent-minded. His focus was on the face and hands that had just brought him so much pleasure and peace.

She rose to sit beside him in the seat, holding his right hand in both of hers. "It's not much further now," she offered. He nodded, slipped back behind the wheel, released the break, and put the vehicle in Drive once again. They moved forward in silence for fifteen more minutes before Dee motioned to a guardrail on the side of the road. "Here."

He pulled over, and she turned to him solemnly. "This part I have to do alone." She touched his cheek. "You have to trust me now. You need to stay here to stay warm. I will be gone 30 minutes or so. Do not worry. Do not follow me. The cold doesn't affect me. I can see in very low light." She paused, sensing all the questions that were tumbling around in his head, but he offered none of them so she pressed on. "I know what I'm doing, Carlisle. Please do not leave the truck. Do not. Do you promise me?"

"I guess so," Carlisle didn't know what else to say. He felt a bit bewildered, but - there was no way he wanted to go out into this snow at night, in the dark... it was crazy... but she had been doing this kind of thing for... how many years? She was unimaginably capable in so many other ways. This was not his game... he'd have to trust...

"Promise."

"I- I promise. But-" She waited, though she knew every question before he spoke it. "Where are you going? What if you don't come back?"

"There is a small cave just a short distance from here. I'm going to put Jess there and seal it. I've been there before, with Jess. It is what he wanted. He will never be found. Don't worry. This..." she waved at the hostile white landscape around them, "is not a problem for me. Even if you left me here, I could get back." He looked at her incredulously and sputtered a laugh. "I know this is difficult to accept, but you must do this for your own protection. You must trust me, OK? If I am concerned about anything, it is only your safety."

He sighed and nodded.

She was out of the truck and rolling back the truck bed cover moments later. She dragged the body from the back with one hand then replaced the cover. He wondered if the body had started to freeze. He watched in amazement as she almost casually slung the bundle over her back and disappeared with it downhill off the side of the road.

He turned off the truck engine to conserve gas. _She'll be back. She'll be back. She _said _she'll be back. I would never leave her here, that's ridiculous! I'll wait as long as I have to._

He looked at the clock. 11:17. He dug behind the seat and found an Indian blanket. He wrapped it around his legs for extra warmth. He opened the glove compartment and saw a pack of Jess's Marlboros. This reminded him he had his own cigarettes, so he pulled one out and lit it. He cracked the window a bit to let the smoke out. _It's gonna get cold in here, but there's plenty of fuel. I can start the engine if I need to. We'll be OK. We... will be OK._

The cigarette was just as unsatisfying as before, but he finished it just to have something to do. Finally, he threw the butt out the window and shut out the outside air. 11:28. Time was crawling. He could see his breath in the cab now, but he decided arbitrarily he wouldn't turn on the engine and the heater until 11:47 _- at the earliest._ _She'll be back before then. _He put his gloves on. He yawned. _You've had enough sleep, Sleeping Fucking Beauty, you can stay awake now._

He awoke with a start. He focused on the clock. 12:10. _Shit! Almost an hour! Where the hell is she? _He reached for the ignition keys but his hands were so stiff with cold he could barely move them. He got the engine started and the heat going, but it was a good five minutes before the heater was warm enough to do any good. Finally, he was defrosted enough to stop shaking and think clearly.

He looked out into the moonlit night, straining his eyes to peer at the spot where she had disappeared. _Well, I've got to do something._ He turned off the engine and turned on the headlights. He exited the truck and made his way over to the road's edge. He looked down the embankment and was horrified to see it was extremely steep. He could still see where she had made her way down the treeless slope, the added weight of Jess's body obscuring the usual crisp appearance of footprints.

"Carlisle."

He started at the sound of her voice behind him, but it turned into relief as he spun to face her. _She's back! Thank God!_

"Is this how you keep promises?" she smiled, leaning against the passenger door.

He pulled himself together so he didn't look like such a wimpy, blithering idiot. "Just getting some air," he mumbled unconvincingly.

"Right." She was duly unconvinced.

He approached and opened the door for her. "You said thirty minutes." The steam of his breath billowed around her. It was impossible to keep the resentment from trickling into his voice.

She got in, and turned to him with a mischievous smile. "Are you coming?"

He hid his own grin as he circled the truck to the driver's side.

Soon, they were retracing their path down the mountain. She sat close to him. He had one hand on the wheel, one arm around her, his hand stroking her hair absentmindedly as they descended in a comfortable silence that, for him at least, had that rare infusion of something like contentment.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Chapter 14**


	14. 14 Proof

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 14**

They lay together on the futon in the front room of the condo. Carlisle hadn't said much, trying to process the events of the past few hours, feeling himself slowly come down from the heightened state he had been in since he awakened the evening before.

"I have a pretty harsh history. You haven't asked me about my past."

She shrugged. "It's not that I don't care, it's just that it doesn't matter. I pick up bits of it all the time as you think about your father, your old way of life."

"You don't even know how old I am."

"I do. Twenty six." She smiled indulgently as his thoughts added to the answer. "Oh. And a half."

He rolled his eyes. "No fair," he smiled. "How old are you?"

She was silent for so long, he thought she wouldn't answer. She massaged his arm langorously, brought his hand to her mouth and ran her closed lips across the back of it. "Older than I look."

He held her chin, turned her face to his. "I don't want a bullshit answer. I want a real answer."

She raised her eyes to his, then shifted her focus to his lips. She came so close she could taste his breath. She closed her eyes and inhaled. "You smell soooo good."

"What does that mean," he said, leaning away from her with a frown.

"It just means you smell delicious," she teased, diving at him and licking his lips playfully, "and taste... even better."

"You freak me out when you talk like that."

"Hmmmmm..." she smiled as she palmed his cock through his jeans. "You weren't too 'freaked out' when I tasted you earlier. In fact, you were very happy to oblige."

"Oh," he laughed nervously. "That's different. That's normal."

"Normal..." she murmured as she pushed his lips open with her tongue. He opened his mouth and his mind, as shades of rust and turquoise, sand and gray overtook him behind his eyelids.

_She was nude, bent over a man in a red rock canyon. Lines like frozen ripples on a lake were etched into the stone around her. Her hair was the same color as the stone. Before her was a large pool of aquamarine water and a white sandy beach. The water reflected the last blues of a dying day; her eyes reflected the color of the water; her skin was paler than the sand. As she rose to a kneeling stance, her luxuriant hair, at odds with the starkness of her surroundings, lifted with her, covering her breasts, unveiling the man. Now he could see the man's black-bearded face. Dressed in light armor, leather pants and boots, the awkward splay of his limbs was a clear indication he would rise no more from that place. She picked up his discarded helmet, filled it from the pool and poured it over his head again and again, brushing the hair tenderly from his face with her long fingernails._

Carlisle opened his eyes. Dee drew away just enough to rest her head on his shoulder. She gazed at his furrowed brow as he reviewed what he had just witnessed. He studied her face for a moment, trying to formulate something to say.

Statement. "That was you." Question. "Did you kill that man?"

Her pupils expanded and contracted once. "Yes."

"He looked like... a soldier or something. What did they call them in school... conquistadors. Why did you show me this? I don't understand."

"You asked me how old I am. I was about your age then."

"Twenty-six."

"I think so. Something near that."

"And you're more than twenty-six now."

She tilted her head, and tipped her mouth up in an irresistible grin. "Considerably."

"So how old are you now?" He sat up on his elbow.

"Do the math, puzzle man." Her eyes twinkled.

"I can't if I don't know when..." He frowned. "You want me to think that was, like, the 1400's?"

"_Late_ 1400's..."

He was silent for an extended moment, then his frown curved into a reluctant grin. "You're full of shit."

"I told you before. I have never lied to you. You believe I drink blood, that I'm very strong and fast, that my senses are superior to yours… but you can't believe I'm old?"

"Not THAT old. I'm not saying you're lying. You're trying to make me say you're over 500 years old. Please. Now quit screwing around and tell me how old you are."

"I'm hurt you don't believe me," she pouted, but a smile was tickling the corners of her mouth. "What does it matter anyway? I have looked the way I do now since I was changed at age 17. I will always look this way no matter how much time passes."

"Sorry. Not biting." He raised his eyebrows and laid back on the futon. "So to speak."

"You want proof?"

"Sure, convince me."

She went to the curio cabinet and took out a small book with a stamped tin cover. _Photo album?_ She opened it to the last third and lay back down beside him. There was a picture of Dee on a motorcycle posing with a twenty-something black-haired man in a leather jacket, jeans and boots. There was a rough handsomeness about him. Cheekbones for days. He was holding Dee possessively, his arm around her hip, his hand resting well below that as if to claim his territory more fully. Dee looked exactly as she did now, except she was wearing clothes that would be considered 'retro' today. It was taken after sunset when the sky is at the height of color. The camera flash and some slight movement of her head in the low light gave her glorious hair the appearance of flames.

Carlisle studied the picture thoroughly before he spoke.

"Year?"

"Seventy-nine."

"Jess, I presume?"

"Jess. I was with him 32 years."

"This isn't proof."

"Look at the previous picture."

Nighttime again. Flash again. This time, a convertible Thunderbird and a cleaner cut guy with a vintage swing shirt, black jeans and greased hair.

"Nice car."

"Tommy. I take good care of my men."

He glanced up at her face before he continued.

He went back through the years, the parade of men like illustrations of costume and culture through the twentieth century. In each photo, Dee's face was almost unchanged except for her manner of dress - sometimes wearing women's clothing, sometimes men's. She looked amazing in the period tailored suits, her lack of overt femininity translating seamlessly to an elegant masculinity. She always wore her hair long, though sometimes tied back or tucked into a jacket or under a hat. When she let her hair spill over the shoulders of the masculine costumes, she looked startlingly sexy, androgynous, and out of place in time.

The last photo he looked at was the first in the book, a daguerreotype labeled "Charles, 1840." Dee was in a period hoop skirt and bonnet, standing stiffly behind the staring man, who was seated in a straight-back chair dressed in a black frock coat, string tie and western-style hat. It was a post-mortem photo, the body arranged to appear life-like as was the practice then at the dawn of the art of photography. Dee posed as the surviving spouse.

Carlisle shuddered. He shut the album, closing his eyes so he didn't have to confront hers. _Damn._

"These can all be elaborate fakes," he said finally.

"This is my life, Carlisle, it isn't faked."

"I can't take any more… all these men... tell me this is it."

"There were many before that, there just aren't any photographs… "

"It's late," he said dismissively. "I probably need to sleep."

"We'll sleep together. As the blood wears off, you'll feel weaker."

"Blood." He sighed with exasperation. "That's something else I just have to accept… isn't it?"

"Sooner or later, you have to acknowledge that it DID happen. I gave you my blood. It made you well, but it also made you… different… better than normal. The healing stays, but the other effects wear off."

"So…. When it wears off, I feel like crap – worse than normal?"

"There's a solution, you know." She opened the collar of her shirt, ran her fingers seductively down her throat. "You always can have more."

He swallowed hard, watching her stroke her exquisite skin with her nails. "You've got to be kidding…" he said brusquely, but as he kept watching, the want grew… and if he realized it, she knew it too.

"I need to be in the inner room before the sun comes up in an hour," she coaxed, her nails now scratching over the fabric of his jeans, the sound just as erotic as the feeling they produced. "Come with me. Get out of these heavy clothes..."

She rose and walked to the window. She pulled the heavy drapes, adjusting them carefully to block as much outside light as possible. She walked into the bedroom in the blind darkness, lighting a candle by the bed to bring her moth to the flame.

He rose with a groan, not only because his body was starting to feel the edge of weariness that had been so conspicuously absent, but because she had teased him hard again and he was uncomfortable in his jeans.

She had already undressed, changed into her Japanese robe and was lying on her side on the mattress, her hair gathered to one side, draped over a seductively half-uncovered shoulder. He peeled off layers, acutely aware of her attention, feeling self-conscious at her intensity. Finally naked, he was about to throw himself on the bed, but she stopped him with one hand, reaching out for his calf with the other, scratching along it lightly from ankle to knee, then pulling forward, forcing one knee to bend. He dropped to his knees beside her.

She continued to trace the contours of his body with her nails, palms, knuckles and fingers, following her own movements through half-closed eyes. She made a low rumbling sound from within her chest. At first he thought she was humming, but as he focused on the sound, he could swear it was more like a purr. He closed his eyes, pushing away the uncanny feeling he was being assessed, surveyed, and tried to just appreciate the odd but stimulating sensation. When her hand moved to his lower back, then grazed his buttocks, his knees unconsciously spread for her as he knelt, his erection moving in anticipation of her touch.

He felt her fingers on his lips. He let her part them and run the pads over his tongue. He embraced them with his mouth, tasted salt, and realized there was also a taste of... rust. His eyes flew open to meet hers, looking up at him intently. She took the fingers from his mouth, touching her wrist then bringing it back to his lips wet and red. He realized, while his eyes were closed, she had scratched a line in the vein at her wrist. He drew back out of her reach, frowning, but she calmly held the offering in place, refusing to release him from her gaze. She leaned farther forward, pursuing his retreat, rubbing the fingers slickly over his lips. He did not recoil, but closed his eyes again and licked the blood clean. She smiled.

"Hold me, caris," she intoned and he came to her, weaving one leg between her two, resting his cheek on the pale skin of her shoulder exposed by the displaced kimono. "Let me care for you," she continued. "I want you to take what you need from me." She brought her wrist to his mouth, and he kissed the dark liquid line, smearing her essence across his lips. Again he licked them, this time his tongue less hesitant. He closed his mouth on the gash, pulling from it, then swallowing. He looked up at her beseechingly as she cradled his head, her fingers stroking his hair in encouragement.

The vibration resumed in her chest as he lost himself in her taste and the exhilaration of taking raw energy from another body into his own.

He remembered now the first time he had felt this. He had thought it was a only a dream, but he was clear now that he had fed from her without inhibition that night - in a semi-conscious state of shock after Jess had attacked him. He did not remember the pain, but he did remember the rush.

He remembered the hunger that had been born in him that night. Only one thing soothed it, a thing his mind knew to be taboo, a thing survival dictated no creature should offer to another. But she was giving him what he dared not ask for, and giving it freely. That couldn't be wrong. How could such bliss be wrong? How quickly one is tempted to embrace prohibition when the reward is pleasure...

At some point he fell away from the font, like a baby fully sated at its mother's breast. She lay beside him, fitting his limbs around her, as he plunged into the bottomless darkness of his own unconscious. 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	15. 15 Discovery

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 15**

"Carlisle..."

He rose from the wordless void of sub-REM sleep to find himself blissfully intertwined with his angel. The black liquid eyes, expressive and deep, were level with his. "I'm here," he answered. "I've missed you."

"I am always with you," it said. Though its lips did not move, the dreamer heard the words clearly in his mind. The being before him was sharper than his mind remembered from previous dreams - no longer a mere sketch, rather a detailed being which brought a strong sense of safety and satisfaction.

"Are you my guardian angel?" he asked.

"I am monster and angel. I am destroyer and protector. I am not human, and you cannot comprehend me in human terms."

He paused to admire the bright strands of copper, gold and bronze that flowed in its hair, touching them with reverence and adoration, before whispering, "I don't want to lose you. I want to be with you forever."

"I have chosen you. Now you must choose me. When you accept who I really am, we will be one."

A wave of emotion washed over him – a crushing grief mixed with heady elation. He recognized the promise inherent in the statement. These words met a longing in him, a need he didn't even know he had.

"But I don't know if I can... I'm afraid..."

"You have to choose between your own kind and me."

"Can't I have both?"

"You live in their world, but you must be loyal to me above all others. Let go of your fragile human existence, your frustrated desires, your limited mind," it coaxed. "This is acceptance."

"I love you."

"Love is a choice."

"Do you love me?"

"I have chosen you. You are cherished above all others. Be at rest in that knowledge."

Ashen eyelids descended over the terrible beauty of its eyes as Carlisle felt himself pulled unwillingly to consciousness. 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

A vertical line of light was his mind's only point of reference in the darkness. He savored the comfort and hope from his dream. He sensed Dee beside him, still and silent.

He rolled off the mattress onto the floor and reached for the door. He needed to pee. Opening the bedroom door, the room became visible momentarily with the scarce light coming from the draped front room window. He closed it carefully and padded naked to the closed bathroom at the end of the hall. He had to shade his eyes from the blinding sunlight that hit him from the tiny uncovered window above the toilet. There was no clock in the bathroom, but he guessed it must be afternoon.

He finished and wandered back towards the living room. _Not one fucking clock in this place._ He moved the heavy drape aside a quarter of an inch and peered out onto the outside world. The sun was as bright, the sky as clear as a summer's day. _Looks like about 3:30pm, the time I normally get off work..._ The snow remained in the shadiest patches next to the hospital, but for the most part had disappeared as if there had never been a storm.

He closed the curtain securely, yawning broadly, and went to the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge but cans of soda and condiments. TV dinners and packages of meat or something in the freezer. He found a box of stale crackers in the cupboard, and ate a handful with half a can of Coke. He was surprised he did not feel very hungry, even though he hadn't eaten since... he wracked his brain... since she fed him spaghetti that first night here. The only thing he'd had to sustain him for three days was the blood... _amazing..._

He thought of turning on the television until she woke... but instead went back to the bedroom, opening the door slowly, slipping in. She lay on her back, eyes closed, immobile, just as he'd left her. He left the door open a crack so he could see, creeping back to sit on the floor beside the mattress. He sat looking at her for a few minutes, following the opening of the robe down between her breasts with his gaze and became aroused at the idea of parting the silk to reveal the uncharted territory beneath.

He leaned mischievously onto the mattress, touching her hand tentatively. No response, not even a change in her almost non-existent breathing. He examined her face for any small movement, thinking happily of seducing her if she should wake. She slept like the dead. His courage increased, and he pulled at the opening to her robe, straining his neck to see inside. He edged the collar open a little more. Still she slept. He froze, his heart beating so loudly, he was sure she would hear it. _Can she read my mind when she's asleep? Surely not…_

With a final brave tug, he opened the front of the robe past one nipple, then let go and lay still beside her. She remained frozen in sleep. He turned his head to enjoy what he had uncovered.

A perfect nipple. Pink and prominent on downy skin. With some slight initial disappointment, but more compassion, he now knew what he had suspected all along - she not only had no breasts, she had the chest of a pre-pubescent child. No tender, feminine swells - not even a hint of them – interrupted the flat, pale plane of her chest. _No wonder she's so shy. It's not a big deal to me, fortunately. _To some guys, a flat chest would be a deal breaker_…_ He smiled sympathetically; he had already come to love the less feminine in her, and this was only a small adjustment in his view of her attractiveness.

He longed to touch the nipple, to harden it, to see her aroused…. But it would be cruel to wake her, wouldn't it? He pulled the robe closed and put his hands between his legs, thinking…

He eyed the lower part of the robe, below the tie. _I am such a horny creep. I can't do that to her… _His hand crept closer to the hem of the robe, as if his brain were disconnected from his limbs and he was helpless to stop its will. His fingers grasped the fabric, lifting it open, folding it to the side. Then the other panel - lift and fold… His heart was beating out the devil's tattoo again, loud in his ears. She was uncovered from the waist down, a patch of downy red hair at the intersection of her closely pressed legs.

His hand went to his cock, already hardening and sensitized. He groaned quietly as he drank in the sight before him. She had denied him this simple intimacy, and it had held his imagination irresistibly. And to take such a liberty without her permission? The erotic effect of the prohibition alone was intoxicating.

He stroked himself as he looked at her, needing more. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her there, to part her legs, to make love to her. One hand on himself, the other reached for her, lightly brushing the soft copper hair. He moved his hand lower, one finger inserted at the apex of her thighs. As there still seemed to be no threat of her waking, he slid his whole hand between her legs, curling his fingers to widen the parting and find her entrance.

But his fingers did not dip into her warm recesses in their search. They met resistance - an obstruction. Confused, he focused on the feeling of the flesh under his fingertips. Without thinking, he tuned into his own cock in his other hand and his brain made a connection…_ It feels… the same…? What the… _He unhanded himself, using both hands to part her legs, none too gently. _Let her wake up! _In one hand he grasped the soft appendage he found there, drawing it out from where it was tucked between her closed thighs.

He stared for a moment, then drew his hand back, releasing it in shock.

Disorientation got the best of him, and he scrambled off the mattress onto the floor, shaking his head in denial at what his eyes clearly told him.

_A man? Am I dreaming now? Is this really fucking happening?_

He bit the hand that had held her. He yelped at the pain. _Not dreaming._

She hadn't moved. _What the hell is wrong with her?_ He grabbed her shoulder, shook her. No response.

"Wake up!" he shouted, but she wasn't aware of him, of his discovery, of his reaction - nothing.

_God, is she, HE, in some kind of fucking coma?_

He realized he was panting, starting to hyperventilate. He struggled to rein in his emotions, scooting along the floor until his back was against the wall.

_I have to think. I have to… do something… think…_

He grabbed his clothes from the floor and stumbled out into the hall and then into the living room. He forgot to close the bedroom door. _Fuck it! Maybe the light will wake her up! And I'm still saying HER._

He started pulling and shoving his clothes on. His movements were uncoordinated, and he almost tore his shirt in an effort to get it on correctly. Anger and confusion manifested in tears, now running freely down his face. He swiped at them furiously.

_It's not fucking fair!_

_You think you know someone, you love someone and they betray you! She said she had never lied to me. What do you call this? It's …. it's.. the most basic lie there is…_

_You're not who you say you are!_

He crept back towards the bedroom with trepidation, holding onto the hallway wall for support. _I just need my shoes… and then I'm leaving… _He entered the dim room, trying not to look directly at the figure on the mattress. He scuttled along the right wall, feeling for his boots. He grabbed them and bolted back out into the front room. He finished dressing, grabbed his jacket and left, slamming the condo's front door behind him.

He pressed the elevator button and waited, pacing in front of it. Impatient to be gone, he crossed the hall to the stairwell and descended the three flights to the lobby. Suddenly he was outside, a stiff, icy wind cutting into him, freezing the tears on his cheeks. He looked around in a daze, not remembering if he had his car or not, and if so, where he had parked it. He pulled his cigarettes out of his inner jacket pocket, and though he knew there would be no physical gratification from the nicotine, he needed the psychological fix. He lit one and inhaled as if he needed the smoke to live, as if it was more vital than oxygen to his starved lungs.

He fished for his car key in an inside pocket, then closed his jacket against the cold. He made his way to the visitor's parking area, finally spotting his little car obscured behind larger vehicles. Throwing the unfinished cigarette on the ground, he got in and slammed the door, shaking violently - though whether from adrenaline or cold, his normally analytical mind couldn't be bothered to assess.

He put the key in the ignition, but did not turn it. Covering his eyes with one arm, he leaned against the steering wheel. The other hand clenched and unclenched on the wheel as he rode the alternating waves of anger and bewilderment.

_How do you really feel, Carlisle?_

_I'm mad! That's how I fucking feel! She lied to me! I mean __he__… what-the-fuck-ever! I would __never__ have gotten involved if I had any idea…_

_Did she actually lie to you?_

_She kept saying… I have never lied to you… and her, his, whole game was a lie! I have got to be the most deluded, desperate, pitiful asshole there is._

_You might want to add "horny asshole" to that list…_

_Oh God! I had sex with him! More than once! Well, oral only, but… damn!_

_Yes. And you liked it. You loved it._

_No!_

_You LOVED it._

_It was under false pretenses! I was… entrapped. That is not right. That is not who I am!_

_Nobody forced you._

_But… ! I'm not to blame! I didn't have all the facts!_

_How was she dishonest with you, Carlisle?_

_Every time she touched me, put her mouth on me… that was dishonest! She omitted the MOST important fact!_

_Did he ever say he was a girl? Did you ever question? No. You were too busy enjoying getting your dick sucked!_

_I noticed masculine things about her... I just never imagined... She never said, in so many words, that she was female, but… her manner indicated... she __let__ me think… she KNEW I thought…. she can read my fucking mind and she just let me continue to deceive myself…_

_You never imagined? Her manner? What the fuck does that mean, Carlisle? Why is she responsible for the sexist assumptions you make? Deceive yourself? Whose fault is that?_

"Shut the fuck up!" he screamed in frustration. He looked up, jarred by the volume of his own voice. The gardener blowing debris from the sidewalks looked up, removed his goggles and squinted in his direction. Carlisle leaned his head back against the seat, fighting to calm himself, but the anger didn't dissipate.

_I don't want to talk myself into being reasonable! I want my girlfriend back! I want to be in love and secure in it, the way I was last night when we fell asleep together! I want to be significant and wanted. I want the way she made me feel until I woke up today and found... THAT! I don't want to feel anything if I can't have that back!_

_She needs to answer for this. I'm not just going to run out with my tail between my legs. Ha! Now THAT's an interesting choice of fucking words! I opened my fucking heart to her! She can't do this to me!_

He wanted confrontation.

_I'm going up there. I'm waking her up and she's going to beg me for forgiveness. He's going to beg me for fucking mercy._

He reached for the pack of American Spirits, and shoved another one between his lips, but the lighter had disappeared from the pocket. He flipped open the glove compartment, sorting through junk for an old forgotten pack of emergency matches.

What he had forgotten was what else was in the glove compartment.

His fingers brushed the hard plastic container. _The glass. Fuck. _He took the container out, shook it lightly. The familiar rattle of rock crystal in a film canister.Music from another life.There was a time that sound could make his day.

_There's no time like the present._

He opened it, poured the contents into his palm. The very presence of the meth seemed to make it tingle. He stared at it, willing himself to just throw it out the window. His hand did not move. _So much for my impressive willpower... _He brought the empty, open canister level with his palm, and gently pushed the rock chunks back into it until all that remained in his hand was the shake, the fine dust that had settled to the bottom.

His heart raced. _You're clean, Carlisle. If you throw this out the window, you stay clean. You've worked so hard. You want to ruin it all?_

He swallowed hard, staring at the powder. _I just need something to help me. Motivate me to get through this. Maybe this was supposed to happen. What the fuck should I do? In a year, I haven't wanted it as badly as I do right now._

He picked up a post card from the floor, folding it on this thigh with one hand. He carefully swept the powdered contents of his hand into the crease then placed it gently on the seat. He took out his wallet, retrieved a dollar bill and rolled it.

His hands were shaking, but it wasn't fear. It was unadulterated lust. It was the return of his beloved, naked and ready for him. _The one who nearly destroyed you... who sucked the life out of you..._ He had found a new beloved, but she had betrayed him. _But my old love is here now to comfort me._ _I should never have left you... __my love..._

He lifted the card to his face.

_It's not too late to stop, Carlisle._

_Fuck you._

He licked his palm where the powder had been. He put the tube to his nostril.

_Stop!_

He inhaled sharply.

Burning. Searing the delicate mucous membrane of his nose. He gasped from the pain, but embraced it, knowing what was to follow. He let out a long moan of pleasure as absorption began and he sensed the power of the tidal wave of dopamine approaching to flood his brain.

Sweet euphoria washed over him, sweeping away every negative thought. He was purged of anger and emotional pain. A wave of explosive happiness passed through him, spreading into peace and contentment. There was a surge of confidence and security and a complete lack of worry.

After a minute, his body felt light and relaxed. His senses turned on, became super-acute. He could smell the cigarette where it had touched his fingers, the musk of his leather jacket. He rolled down the window, grasping the outside air with an open hand, tangibly soft on his skin and on the walls of his throat as he inhaled.

He pulled his shirt over his nose and could clearly smell Dee's scent on it. When he finally lowered the fabric from his face, he was hard. Instead of the confusion and repulsion he had felt not 10 minutes ago, he was now fully aroused and ravenous. The anger was completely gone; he felt an extraordinary clarity of mind. The sense of extreme well-being and confidence that had come upon him with the meth was accompanied by a single-minded, very physical need: to fuck.

He rolled up the window, got out of the car, locking it with his remote, and strode towards the condo lobby. Once inside, he realized he was essentially locked out, and she was probably still dead to the world. He buzzed Dee's number. Waited. Nothing. He buzzed another condo on the third floor, and then another. No answers. He paced the lobby for a moment, inserting his car keys in his outer jacket pocket. He felt another set of keys. _Jess's truck keys! Is there a house key too? _Pulling them from the pocket he saw there was indeed an additional key on the truck ring - stamped with the Omega logo.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	16. 16 Confrontation

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 16**

He stepped inside the apartment and closed the door loudly, making no effort to be quiet. He threw his jacket on the living room floor and made a direct path to the bedroom. The door was still ajar. Dee was on the mattress exactly as he had left her, robe open, unhidden, undeceiving, unaware.

Carlisle stared at the half-naked boy before him. The fury had left him, in its place an unfamiliar mix of feelings. Restlessness and resentment warred with desire and possessiveness. In this state, he didn't know what to do with the facts that confronted him. The worst of his initial anger and humiliation had been sidetracked by the euphoric effect of the drug and now the secondary effect of that catalyst was impacting heavily on his libido.

Perhaps it was the combination of Dee's blood and the meth, but his sense of smell was so hyper-sensitive, it was almost painful to step back into her house. The scent that had attracted and captivated him the past few days permeated the small place. He made his way to the source - the bedroom - the fragrance compelling him towards the bed. Arousal drove him forward.

For the first time since she had revealed to him her inhuman nature, he was able to lay aside his doubt. The blood and the drug worked together to enhance his natural instincts, and the evidence of his animal senses told him irrefutably not only was this no woman, it was no man either.

_"…you cannot comprehend me in human terms…"_

He shuddered as the words in his dream surfaced from his memory.

He had seen Dee kill a man right in front of him, a man she admittedly cared for, but even that brutal evidence did not cause him to fear her now. Fear would have been the better response, but he couldn't shake the inexplicable confidence that this being would not hurt him any more than he would hurt himself. The blood had bonded them.

_"I have chosen you. You are cherished above all others. Be at rest in that knowledge."_

He had come back upstairs to… to… to do what? To confront… to question… to strike back for the hurt of betrayal. But suddenly it all seemed so unimportant in comparison to the physical need clamoring in his groin. He unbuttoned his jeans.

_What are you doing, Carlisle?_

_I'm taking what's mine._

Shedding the rest of his clothes, flinging them to the wall, he knelt on the bed, grabbing the unconscious boy and rolling him roughly onto his stomach. He met no resistance from the sleeper, which only further removed him from his conscience. He ripped the tie of the robe from its loops, and shoved the silk covering aside. He aggressively repositioned the prone form in front of him, kneeling between its legs, raising the level of its hips to meet his stiff cock which grew more demanding by the second.

He ran his hands around the firm and pliable buttocks; his fingers explored the part between them. He found the entrance he sought, licking one digit and pressing it inside up to the knuckle, then withdrawing. He settled himself between the cheeks, pressing forcefully to enter. But he hadn't bargained on the strength of the restrictive muscle he encountered, to say nothing of the total lack of lubrication. He spit in his hand to help himself and prepare the tight hole before him. He made several attempts before finally accumulating enough slickness on the tip of his cock to penetrate. He caught his breath, appreciating the brand new realm of stimulation. Strange, yes, but marvelously intense.

He withdrew, adding more slippery wetness to his shaft and head, and pushed the tip in again. Then, with one hard shove, he fully sheathed himself inside the boy. He groaned in satisfaction as sparks of pleasure warmed his groin and moved up his spine. He bent at the waist, his chest touching the skin of its back for a moment before he realized the unintended intimacy and reared back to a position of minimal contact. He held still, savoring the feel of the constricting velvet encasing him.

Again he withdrew, slowly this time, head falling back as his mind slammed the doors to logical thought, focusing solely on the sensation building in him. His body pushed his mind aside as his hips pumped and his hands controlled the passive being beneath him. Panting impatiently, he applied more lubrication, enabling him to move with more speed, each thrust pitching its head and shoulders into the mattress. He reached for a shoulder, but instead grasped a handful of long hair. He gathered all of the hair into his hand, and twisted it around his fist, using it for balance and leverage to add force to his now violent undulating thrusts.

The meth propelled and sustained his energy as he labored towards climax. His movement accelerated, his body and mind drawn like a bowstring, closing in on the pending release. Suddenly, the narrow channel of flesh that held him tensed, pulling him from the brink with the knowledge that awareness had awakened in the being beneath him.

He stopped, but with no intention of disengaging. He was too hard, too far gone, too adamant to relinquish now. His mind re-engaged though, and he waited, all his senses alert for the struggle he predicted from the creature below him. The thought of its resistance made his cock jump in anticipation.

To his surprise, it pressed its hips back against him, pushing him deeper inside. It raised itself up on its elbows, arching its back to give him greater access. It turned its head slightly, but did not look at him directly. It took his hand from its hair, placing that hand firmly on its shoulder, then grasped the hand that held its hip to secure that hold.

Carlisle swallowed and clenched his teeth. Amazingly, he hadn't lost his erection. He thrust once, twice, and it yielded to him in an unmistakable display of submission. He began to move again, building up to the state at which he had stopped. Now an active participant rather than an unconscious recipient, the thing beneath him manipulated his body in subtle ways, internal and external, that enhanced his pleasure, driving him closer to orgasm faster than he could take himself.

He swiped at the mist of sweat on his forehead. He became aware of the rhythm of his heartbeat in his ears. Any muscle that wasn't involved in movement at that moment tensed or flexed or arched or strained, removed from conscious control. His breathing took a deeper turn, maximizing oxygen; his hands clenched, pulling back on the boy. A tingling heat started in his balls, radiated up through his cock, expanding until he felt it would burst. Bursting, he let go of any desire for control. An intense pulsing shudder spread from his cock up his abdomen and around to his back as all the tension released at once. He thrust until the pulsing faded, and despite his earlier prohibition of intimacy, collapsed on top of the boy, irregular breaths interspersed with moans.

When he finally rolled to the side, the boy reached tentatively to stroke his damp arm. Carlisle looked in disgust at the hand, gentle on his skin, then grabbed the wrist roughly, holding the offending hand away from his body. Pale eyes tried to meet his, but he turned his head away. He tightened his grasp on the boyish wrist, twisting, hoping to cause discomfort, but the boy did not cry out or try to get away. He yielded with the force until Carlisle impotently gave up and released him, pushing himself off the mattress completely to gain some distance.

Carlisle pulled his knees to his chest, hiding his head in his arms. The boy remained silent, monitoring the stream of invective running through Carlisle's tortured brain, probably realizing it was not the best time to speak words of either comfort or defense. He drew the robe around himself, and lay on his side, his expression sad and attentive. Finally, Carlisle spoke.

"How could you do this to me?" His voice was low and muffled inside his arms.

Dee did not speak. Carlisle looked up to reveal his cheeks wet with tears.

"Answer me!" he cried.

"I'm still the same person-" came the soft voice.

"Cut the crap!" Carlisle interrupted. "You led me on. You let me think..." he put his head back in his arms. "God..."

"That I was a woman," he volunteered.

"Fuck! Yes!" Carlisle looked up resentfully. "You fucking liar! And... and do not tell me you never lied to me... you can't just leave that part out when... when you... you want to have a relationship with someone!"

"I'm not a woman, Carlisle."

"It's a little late for that confession! You should have said that before... before you had... sex... with me..."

"Please look at me." Carlisle lifted his head, but still wouldn't meet his eyes. "Please." Dee sighed. "I am not a woman. But neither am I a man. I'm not human. You know this, Carlisle, you just don't want to accept it." Carlisle shook his head.

"I don't believe that. You're just... there's something wrong with you... in your mind... I don't know... you need help... "

"You know the truth , yet you push it away. I understand you're frightened. Every man I've been with has been frightened at first. It's natural. Maybe the most frightening thing of all is not how strange I am, but the real affection you feel for me. Just accept that you love me, and the rest will fall into place."

"I don't have to accept anything! I don't have to be with you."

"No, you don't. You can leave anytime you want. You never have to see me again. But there is something more important than any of this that you need to know before you walk out."

Carlisle finally met his eyes. Dee scooted to the edge of the bed, a few feet closer. Carlisle looked at him in alarm, pointing a trembling finger. "You stay away from me!"

Dee stayed where he was.

"I care for you, Carlisle. With me you will always be loved and secure. I've shown you evidence by showing you some of my past, but you have a deeper knowledge than that." Carlisle wrinkled his forehead in question, but said nothing. "You have had dreams about someone or something you call your angel, is that right?"

"How do you know that?" Carlisle spat back defensively.

"The image is there in your mind. At first, when I saw this in your thoughts, I wondered how it could be. The angel was there before the night Jess died... which was the first time you saw me... what I really am..." Carlisle was shaking his head again in refusal. "Do you remember the night Jess hurt you? I was on top of him and you were lying on the floor. You were conscious, but in shock. You saw me on top of him... and I looked different."

Carlisle gasped.

"That's the first time you saw my real form, and you thought I was... your 'angel'... is that right?"

"That wasn't real."

"I am that angel, Carlisle. Think about it. The creature you dream looks like me. When I kill, when I feed - I change. My eyes, my hands, my hair... you know what I'm talking about..." Carlisle's hand was over his mouth, his eyes tightly closed. "I am real.

"Tell me... " Dee continued softly, "Is your angel female or male?"

Carlisle's eyes opened wide, his expression was one of hurt. _This is too much. She even invades my dreams... this is too private... nobody should know this..._

"You love your angel, don't you? You see him as a protector... and more."

A sob escaped the man. He shoved his fist in his mouth.

"I know you care for me. I see it in your mind. I care for you, too," the boy finished.

Carlisle collapsed onto the floor, his still naked body balled up into fetal position, hands clenching and muscles still taut from the excess energy that was the residual effect of the meth. His shoulders began to shake but no sound emerged from him.

Dee moved closer, but did not touch him.

"I'm not judging you, Carlisle. I don't hate you.'"

"Get OUT of my head," he growled.

"Remember that I lived with Jess. Yes, he would do anything for that drug, and over time it changed our relationship, but I never stopped caring for him. Ever."

"I've been clean over a year! Damn you! You have no idea how difficult it was to stop and to stay away from it! I should have stopped myself today, but I didn't want to. That's what scares me. I didn't fucking want to say no.… I was so angry and disgusted and desperate... I let myself slip. I caved after all this time! And now I am so fucked!

"And then I come back up here to tell you off... to make you accountable for what you made me do... and I … oh God... I did that... with a guy!" he groaned. "Crank makes me so fucking horny... And now I'm gonna crash... and be drug-tested and lose my job... and be alone... and it's all your fucking fault! ...and what's the point?"

Dee knelt behind him. "I'm going to help you, OK? I'm going to help you calm down."

Dee laid his hands on Carlisle's heaving shoulders, just skimming the surface of the skin, up the back of his neck and down again, down to his shoulder blades, across his back. Carlisle drew in a deep breath, not acknowledging, but not pushing the hands away either. He let himself be soothed, caressed, massaged; gradually, slowly, the brittle tension in his muscles started to drop away. He was able to stop the tears, but not the stuttering hitching in his breathing, the remnant of his fierce attempt to quell the sobs.

His overall sensitivity had begun to diminish, but his nose was suddenly sharply aware of a unique and familiar aroma. He opened his eyes to slits, seeing a red-streaked wrist at his lips. His tongue was already emerging to reach for the nectar, while his mind was still attempting to decide whether or not to refuse the offer. The first taste settled any question of abstinence.

He fed, and though there was certainly no comparison with the intensity of the chemical tsunami that was the first rush of a crystal bump, the blood washed away the anger and the tension with its own brand of rapturous intoxication. He felt the familiar fingernails in his hair, strong arms around him, and he knew he was being cradled by the creature.

_I shouldn't do this. I can't allow this..._

But still he fed.

_I don't want to say no._

_What the fuck? Am I addicted to her blood?_

The thought was enough to cause him to stop sucking and pull back from the wrist at his lips.

_Let go of me._

Carlisle extricated himself from the arms around him. He reached for his shirt and pants on the floor behind him. He started to get dressed. Wiping his mouth, he stood and went into the front room.

Dee rose from the floor to follow him. She stood in the hallway, clutching her robe closed, watching Carlisle as he put his boots on.

Carlisle grabbed his jacket and opened the front door, pausing to turn and glare at Dee.

"I want you to know," she said. "No matter what you decide, I will be here for you."

He slammed the door behind him. 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	17. 17 Acceptance

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 17**

It had started to rain. To desert dwellers, rain is always a miracle. It happens, but so rarely as to inspire emotion and poetry in even the most unromantic soul. Carlisle was more romantic than he liked to admit, more prone to emotion and poetry than he thought a "real" guy should be.

_What the hell is a real guy, anyway?_

He rolled down his car window. Droplets sprinkled the inside of the door, the seat, his jacket, his face. It looked like he was crying, but the tears were surrogate. Now that he was alone, the tears just wouldn't come.

_Damn. I never thought it would be possible to feel this fucking good and this fucking bad at the same fucking time!_

_This is amazing. Normally by this time, I'd be fidgeting and scratching. It's gotta be the blood._

He could feel the speed like a base guitar line - steady energy - with the blood playing lead, melody - mellowing the drug out.

It had warmed up considerably; the rain had nearly cleared the roads of snow. It was early evening and despite the shower, the streets were busy, even with pedestrians. He thought of the Canyon Bar. He hadn't been there in days. The guys probably thought he was working doubles. He felt like he'd been out of touch with the real world for a very long time.

He entered his house without turning on the light, without removing his boots at the entrance. He pushed carelessly at the front door in a beeline to the bedroom, not even looking back to see if it had closed completely. Throwing his duffel bag against the wall, he laid face down on the bed with his boots on. After a while, he got up, pulled off his boots and headed for the kitchen. He opened the freezer, pulled out a packaged dinner and threw it in the microwave without reading the instructions or even opening it to vent the plastic. _I've got to eat something._

When the timer sounded, he dragged the meal out, and carried it box and all into the living room. He switched on the TV. He tore open the box of hot food and poked at it with the fork. Somehow the thing had heated in a halfway efficient manner - just a few cold spots and a few over-cooked spots because he hadn't vented or turned it. _I swear these things are moron-proof!_

He took a bite. _It tastes like cardboard_. He chewed and swallowed. _Cardboard and salt._ He forced down a few more bites before throwing the fork into the sauce and shoving the TV tray away.

_Maybe I'm just not hungry. Maybe nothing tastes right after tasting the blood. It's more than a taste though, it's alive. It's like swallowing... life._

_Restless. I need something to do until the crank wears off. Maybe I should go down to the bar and burn some energy. Play some pool._

He went to the bathroom, flipped on the light. He examined his pupils. _Enlarged, but not basketballs… I can pass… You don't immediately go back to looking like a fucking tweaker after one random hit... That's all it was, right? I'll never touch it again. Fucking junkies always say that... _He turned on the CD player. He brushed his teeth and stepped into the shower. The music had new depth and subtlety. The water felt phenomenal.

He stroked himself with a handful of hair conditioner as the hot liquid soothed the jitters from his skin. He plugged in his standard fantasy images... his favorite hot actress, the Native-American girl who flirted with him at the laundromat, the two together... but his mind soon seamlessly exchanged the faces and hands, the eyes and hair, for those of someone else... the long fingers and skilled mouth that had so recently explored him... the flawless, creamy skin of lean, sculpted buttocks and legs... no other feeling compared... the softness... the tightness... the total submission to his pleasure...

By the time he pushed himself over the edge, the water had gone luke-warm. He turned it off and stood with one hand against the wall, panting. A pleasant tiredness washed over him as he dried himself and flopped down on the bed to pull himself together. Feeling cleaner now, and having efficiently relieved the discomfort of yet another crank-induced hard-on, he got dressed to go out.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

It was what he ordinarily would have considered a good night at the Canyon Bar. A few of the guys were there, they bought him a beer and chided him for being so scarce. He lied, said he was working double shifts at the hospital. They asked if he was 'gettin' any'. He lied again, making jokes about the lack of good pussy in Los Alamos. He made them laugh. He beat them at pool; the beer had no effect on his focus. They stumbled out at 11:30. He stayed on, racking up the balls and practicing bank shots by himself at he pool table.

One of the girls from the labs wandered over to talk to him around midnight. She was tipsy but not drunk, and more than a little friendly. She was attractive, feminine, the type he had always gone for. The signs she was sending let him know she was available - all he had to do was pick up the cues. But the only cue he took was the one he kept well-chalked as he circled the table, fielded her questions and let her talk endlessly about her job, her school, her friends...

All night he had felt like he was only half there, one foot in the normal world and the other in a story so strange no one would believe it. _Except those people at the labs… It's so top secret in there they might as well be entertaining aliens… you can't even drive through the gate without a personal invitation…_

About 1:00 am the girl gave up her clumsy attempts to seduce him, asking sulkily for a goodnight hug. He permitted it, but quickly regretted it because she took the opportunity to plant a kiss on him when she got close enough. His closed-lipped smile was polite, but not encouraging. He didn't want to be unkind, but he felt nothing in return. She shrugged as she turned and made her way unsteadily out the door.

He was beginning to feel the downhill roll of the meth. _Jumpy. Restless._ Muscles and head were beginning to ache. He had to admit, though, this spin had been unexpectedly smooth. _It has to be the blood. _ It seemed to have rounded out the sharp edges of the come-down. The serious crash was still to come, though - a descent into a broken and immobile state that only time and sleep could heal. He pushed away the craving for more blood. He pushed away the fleeting thought that he could ask for more, but the idea would not leave him.

On the drive home, his mind played back the events of that afternoon. He had lost control and done a line of meth. After all this time, it had been so easy to relapse – just because he had an emotional shock. Then, what was his response to that high? Absolutely appalling. He went upstairs and literally _raped_ someone! _What the fuck was that? _Punishment for deceiving him? How could he treat another human being like that? And there was _that _issue too. Could he possibly believe this boy was what he said he was? He kept looking for logical explanations at every bizarre turn, but so much of it just defied logic.

In the short time he had known this person, he had felt more happiness than in all the years of his life previous. Could he just walk away from all that like it never existed? The sex had been nothing short of _amazing_. That could not be denied. How could he ignore that? No one, not even his own parent, had shown him as much affection and attention. That could not be denied.

No one had ever _killed _for him. Deeply _deeply _disturbing, but equally undeniable.

He had always dreamed of having a relationship, but he had never really imagined what it would be like. Could it be that his own prejudice and blindness could cut him off from, potentially, the best thing that ever happened to him? It was just so hard to wrap his head around the strangeness of it all. Every time he thought he had the situation figured out, there was another layer, another complication, another - deal breaker.

Was Dee's gender a deal breaker?

What about murder? Now he was an accessory, but he didn't kill anyone. What about the blood drinking? Now he was guilty of the same thing, but again, he sure as hell didn't kill anyone.

_You're a piece of work, Carlisle! You'd rather accept that Dee is a murderer than that he is a male! How human are you, dude? You certainly have less human kindness than this vigilante vampire!_

As difficult as it was for him to face, he brought to mind the images of having sex with Dee that afternoon. He was surprised to find he did not feel disgust at the memory of Dee's body beneath him, knowing it was male, but he did feel disgust at his own animalistic behavior. _Worse than an animal! Animals don't fuck for spite!_

He was even more uncomfortably surprised to find himself hardening at the memory of the experience.

He pulled into his driveway, killed the engine and closed his eyes for a moment. He missed her. He wanted the feel of those arms, those capable hands and fingers, those soft lips, that amazingly beautiful face, that unique voice, those piercing eyes, and most of all - MOST of all - that long copper-colored hair spread over his skin, the weight of her head on his shoulder. He was depressed.

He sighed, getting out of the car, walking heavily to the porch.

He shoved the key in the lock.

"Carlisle…"

He whirled to the side, heart pounding. God! He'd just been thinking about her, and suddenly she was there. The voice was so unearthly in this context: his house, his porch, outside, middle of the night. She sat on the far corner of the porch, against the wall of the house, mint-green hoodie and bright eyes, exactly as when he first met her. He felt a pressure in his chest remembering how excited, how, nervous, how... obsessed... he had been that day.

"How did you get here?" he asked, looking around for a vehicle, even a bicycle.

"On foot," she answered. When he still looked confused, she added. "It's night time. I can be outside until dawn." She pulled the last question from his thoughts with a smile as she got up and walked towards him. "It's far, but I run very fast - and I don't get tired." She shrugged.

He looked down. He was glad she was there. He tried to stifle his thoughts, but he doubted he was successful. It was almost impossible to hide his emotions when he was around her. He opened the door and stepped inside, removing his shoes inside the threshold. She stood in the doorway, waiting, as he moved further into the room. She did not enter.

He turned with feigned impatience. "Well?"

"You have to invite me in."

"What, are you kidding me?"

"No. You have to say the words."

_What kind of fucking game is this? _"Alright then, would you please come in?"

"Thank you." She stepped through the threshold, removing her shoes as he had done. "It's not a game, Carlisle. It's a condition of my existence."

"Fuck," he said under his breath, throwing his jacket onto the sofa and walking into the dark bedroom. His heart was racing, and he didn't think it was from the crank.

She followed him into the other room, sitting on the bed as he emptied his pockets onto the dresser. She picked up his lighter and lit a candle by the bed.

"You went out," she stated.

"Yeah. The bar. How long have you been here?"

"A few hours."

"Seriously?" He shook his head. "That's just crazy, Dee."

"You called me Dee." She smiled shyly.

"That's your name."

"But... you haven't called me by name, even in your own head since... you got angry this afternoon."

He felt very self-conscious. He had objectified her when he found out she wasn't a girl. He couldn't bring himself to say "he" comfortably, so he avoided the pronoun, substituting various terms including the word "it". He resented her for reminding him now. He had been trying to sustain the illusion as long as possible.

"Why are you here?" he said, crossing the room to sit on the far side of the bed.

She unzipped the hoodie and laid it on the side chair. She casually leaned across the bed on one side. He swallowed hard. He could smell her. It was hard to think.

"I miss you. I don't want this tension between us."

"There can't be any 'us'."

"You need time. I understand."

The pressure in Carlisle's chest was downright painful. It was hard to catch a breath. He stood and paced to one side of the room, then the other.

"No! You don't understand. I can't love you!" he burst out. "I can't have a relationship with a man! That's not who I am!"

She was silent. He felt like a royal asshole, but he had to say it. He watched her from the corner of his eye.

"I can make you happy, Carlisle. You already know that."

Carlisle started to pace again. _No._

"You want me. You can't hide that from me."

_No!_

"Your desire deserves to be fed. It's a start. Just give us time."

"I want you to get out of here!"

"No, you don't."

He turned away from her, putting his forehead to the glass on the window, looking across the yard to the mountains in the distance. He felt trapped by his own inhibitions. He stood there for a minute, then turned to her.

She was naked, kneeling on the bed, facing him. Her... other parts... were tucked between her legs the way they had been when he first violated her privacy at the condo... when she hadn't been able to stop him... Her hair fell over her shoulders and covered her breasts, or lack of. She was so heart-breakingly beautiful in the light of the flame. She reached out to him.

"No one will know except you and me. No one will judge you. I just want to make love to you. Please."

The pressure in his chest built as he approached the bed. He let his clothes fall by the edge of the bed, then climbed up to kneel facing her. His cock was ready even if his mind was not.

She leaned forward to intercept him with a generously lubricated hand, the sensation halting all other thought as she pressed and slid, bringing his erection to maximum. She guided him backwards, maintaining her slippery hold, moving in focused tandem, supporting his descent, until he reclined on his back and he could feel her weight on his hips, the smooth taut skin of her buttocks cool across his aching cock.

The sound of forced breath, and the candle went out.

Her hand guided him into her slowly, slick and smooth and tight. He shifted under her, moved inside her, and he couldn't remember anything ever feeling this good. She rocked slowly on top of him, tempering her weight with the lift of her thighs as one hand walked his chest muscles, massaging as she undulated. With her other hand she stimulated herself. He grasped her rear with both hands, his fingers pressing hard into her satiny flesh, and she surrendered control of pace and force, allowing him to take his pleasure with her body.

He felt her fingernails drag on his chest with tortuous lightness. She increased pressure, scratching him deliciously until at some point she cut a line on his skin. His senses were so compromised they no longer distinguished pleasure from pain. It wasn't until she began to lick the wound, then pull on it with her soft, persistent mouth, gently milking it with her teeth, that he realized she was indeed drinking his blood.

Through an ecstatic haze fogged by the remnants of trepidation, his mind wandered. _So this is how the line is finally crossed. She knew I'd give in, let her drink my blood... She is using me, but I don't care... I want to be used... She always puts my pleasure first... This is hers... This is how she gets off... As strange as it is, I fucking owe her this... I want her to fucking have it. I am not a victim - because I consent... She won't hurt me... I had no idea... no fucking idea it would feel this good... to give her what she needs..._

Her breathing sharpened in pitch and pace. She made soft sounds he had never heard from her before as she nursed at the wound. He wished he could see her face as she fed. He could swear she was purring, or maybe growling, as she reached her orgasm, vibrating his chest underneath her. His amazement made him pause in his own momentum as he waited for her to lapse into stillness. He drew a deep breath, thrust several times in quick succession, then tightened and pulsed inside her, crying out as the intensity grew, sustained, then dropped him down into numbness.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll….. 


	18. 18 Consummation

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 18**

He couldn't sleep. That was to be expected. But the devastating crash of muscle pain and scorched nerves he had anticipated never came. The meth was wearing off, but the path of destruction he anticipated in its wake never came. She had spared him that with the gift of her blood.

The rain clouds must have cleared, because there was a little moonlight from the window. He turned to look down at the face that nestled heavily at his shoulder, barely visible in the faint light. He ran his hand along the neck, lifted the chin and followed the vertical path of the trachea to find her Adam's apple. Yes, it was there. It had always been there. He just hadn't noticed it before. The whole time he'd known her, he had been so busy greedily soaking up the attention she gave him so freely and so frequently, he hadn't even explored her body.

His body.

_Some fucking star nurse you are, you can't even tell your girlfriend isn't a girl!_

Dee's fingers reached up to stroke that part of his neck in response.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

There was no answer, but the slim, naked body at his side adjusted to wrap its arms around him still more closely.

"I'm sorry, Dee. I've behaved like a real dick." Soft lips and tongue toyed with his nipple. He smiled and covered it with his hand. "That feels good, but we need to talk."

"Of course," she said softly.

"Now, you may have picked all this up in my brain already, but I want to tell you myself, out loud, OK? I need to do that. I need to at least try to redeem myself."

"I'm listening."

"First of all, when I woke up today, I opened your robe to... look at you. That was disrespectful. You told me to wait, but… when I saw you were asleep, and unresponsive, I violated your privacy by touching you without your permission. And that's when I discovered your secret…"

"It wasn't a secret, Carlisle."

"Whatever." He shook his head and continued. "So I ran away, like a coward. I ran away, and I did something horrible. I did meth again. That glass I skimmed from the bag meant for Jess - I did some of it. And then… you know, the drug makes you really horny… of course you know… from living with Jess… and I came back upstairs with Jess's keys… and I saw you there… "

She squeezed him gently, but remained quiet.

"And I… took you… but it wasn't loving, and it wasn't with your permission, it was by force… and that's wrong… and I just want you to know I'm not normally the kind of man who does things like that… it was the drug… and… I think you've already forgiven me… but I just felt I needed to say that…

"I've been beating myself up over the fact that I did the meth. But, I'm beginning to think I should be grateful it happened... because it has strengthened my determination not to touch the stuff ever again. I don't want to turn into anything like Jess... "

He fell silent.

"Some time I will tell you about my life with Jess. You have no idea… just know that any forgiveness you need I have already given you. You can let go of it now." She put her hand over his heart and massaged it as if to heal it, but when she pulled away, the spot felt colder.

After a while, he spoke again.

"When you took my blood tonight… did you do that because you were… hungry?"

"I do need to feed fairly soon, but that's not why I did it. You don't have to be afraid…" she answered. He put his hand to her lips.

"I'm not afraid. Honestly, before you did it tonight, I was afraid you might try to drink my blood sometime, and I wasn't sure what I would do when that happened. I thought I might have to fight you… but, it made sense, the way you did it… and I'm not afraid anymore. You could kill me if you wanted to. But you won't. I trust you."

"I wanted to be closer to you. I had already let you feed from me, and that created a bond, but the bond was not complete until I fed from you, too."

"I have never felt that close to anyone," he whispered. "That was amazing. Every experience I've had before seems superficial now.

"I've been so resistant, so stubborn, so closed with you. I know I've been such a pain in the ass… but... you changed something in me…

"To really be with you means I have to make major changes in the way I lead my life… in the way I think about myself. But you know what? My life has been fucked up until now. Even the good parts have been shitty. No one has ever treated me the way you do. No one has ever cared for me like you do. I've realized that what I would leave behind isn't even worth fighting for.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I truly want to be with you. I'm still confused about a lot of things, but I'm willing to try to figure those things out. Am I making sense?"

"Perfect sense," she whispered.

"Thank you," he said and fell silent.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked.

"Go ahead."

"Earlier today, when I told you I am not human, you said you didn't believe that. You said you thought it was in my head, like a mental illness. I would like to respond to that. No. I don't have a mental illness in human terms. I'm a different kind of creature than you are. I was born human, but I was changed when I was young. I didn't choose it, but I have to live with it. You've seen the evidence with your own eyes. Once you've accepted that fact, you will see that what you perceive as gender is a very, very small thing to accept by comparison."

Carlisle shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes. I've been afraid to face so many things. That you're different is clear. What you are is something I don't understand fully, but I do understand that you can't help it and I'm pretty sure you're not crazy. You'll have to give me time with this non-human thing, OK? I may live in New Mexico, but I haven't seen flying saucers and I haven't been abducted so I don't believe in aliens… yet..."

He laughed, and so did she.

"There's just no space in my brain yet for that concept, you know? Maybe I have to learn to see the world - and you - differently before I can fully accept what you're trying to tell me. So I hope you can be patient with me while I figure out how to be with you...

"I know Jess helped you... get what you need... and I just have to say I don't think that I'm capable of doing that for you... I helped you with Jess's body, but... do you understand? I'm not that kind of person. I can't kill people or be an accessory to murder. I worry about saying this because you might not want to be with me... you might need to find someone who can be more of a partner or helper to you..."

She nodded. "I want you to know, that while I have killed – to live – I don't take it lightly... and there is an alternative."

"Can you drink animal blood?"

"Yes. It isn't quite the same, but it will do. It will keep me alive."

"You can hunt? Deer? Coyotes? Rabbits?"

"Yes, I can capture animals quite easily."

"Then why don't you? You don't like the taste?"

"It doesn't sustain me as long as human blood – I have to feed more often. Yes, it tastes, shall we say, not quite as savory… but the point I'm trying to make is that I am willing to give up what is as natural to me as eating meat is to you... if that's what it takes to be with you."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"To you, killing a human is wrong. It is your own species. Although you eat meat, it is taboo to consume your own species - against nature, right? I am not human. That is not my species. To kill a human is only as wrong for me as it would be for you to kill a cow. Humans consider themselves the dominant species on the planet so they cherish human life above all others. The fact is, humans are not the most dominant or superior creatures in nature, not even the most populous..."

Carlisle considered this. "Are there others like you?"

"Yes. But I will explain that to you later, when it is time. Trust me. Let me share that knowledge with you in my own good time and it will be easier to accept. Accept me first."

Carlisle looked at the clock. "Don't you have to get home? I mean, before it's light out? I can take you."

"Actually, I was going to run home on the outskirts of the town, and find something to eat on my way."

"I want to go with you. Is that OK?"

"I guess so…"

"Get dressed." 

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

30 minutes later they were travelling 501 East, otherwise known as Diamond Drive, north of the Los Alamos Municipal Golf course. Carlisle had frequently seen deer on the golf course at night. He pulled off the road and parked.

"You had better wait here," said Dee. "When I'm hunting, I move very fast and, as I told you, when I feed, I change… "

"Why didn't you change when you drank my blood?"

"Well, that's different. I wasn't hunting you. And that wasn't feeding for nourishment," she touched his wrist. "That was bonding. In order to hunt and feed, I must become... quite feral.

"Like when you fed on Jess? I want to see you change again! Can you capture a deer and bring it closer so I can watch?"

"Yes. I can do that," she nodded. "Alright. But please stay in the car, OK? When I'm hunting it's not good for me to catch a human scent. It's dangerous."

She got out of the car and disappeared into the night. The clouds had almost completely cleared, and the landscape was fairly well-lit from a three-quarter moon. About ten minutes later, there was subtle movement in the trees to the side of the car, and he could make out her pale form carrying something as large as she, walking towards the car at a pace that suggested it weighed nothing at all. She moved into a break in the trees about a hundred feet from him so he could see more clearly with the available light. She threw the animal to the ground.

A chill went up his spine when he made out the details of what he was witnessing. Her hair was wild, fuller. Her eyes, when they caught the light, reflected like a cat's. She extended the neck of the deer and tore open the neck with her teeth, pressing her mouth to the wound, her chest heaving as she gulped the blood with alien movements resembling neither human or animal. But the thing that caught his attention and kept it was her hands. The powerful fingers curved as they pressed into the fur of the deer, and the tips that dug in, kneading, stroking, were unmistakably claws.

His instinctive reaction was to flee. Anyone would. But what held him there, trembling, was the mantra he whispered to himself over and over – _my angel, my angel, it's just my angel…_

Ten minutes later it was over, but she remained crouched there by the body of the deer for another five, head down, limbs limp. Carlisle began to breathe more calmly, but when she stood and looked back towards the car, adrenaline shot through him again. From what he could see, she looked like herself again, slim, pale and pretty in the blue light. She approached the car slowly, aware of the trepidation broadcast in his thoughts. She paused on the handle to the door.

"I'm OK. You can get in now," he said shakily.

She lowered herself into the seat slowly, not making eye contact. He knew she was listening to his heartbeat and seeing the remnants of panic in his mind. He was grateful for the consideration. He noticed she kept her hands between her thighs and he wondered, if she withdrew them, what he would see. How long did it take her to transform? But he did not ask.

He started the car, took a deep breath, and made a U-turn to return West on Highway 501. They rode in silence until the lights of the hospital came into view on the next mesa.

"Do you want to stay with me today?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," he answered. "But I think I need some time alone right now. Are you… full?"

"I'm fine. I'll be fine for a couple of days."

He pulled up to the front of the Omega condos. "I'll see you this evening."

"Just let yourself in. I naturally awaken about an hour before sunset."

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

She opened her eyes to his. He was lying beside her on her bed, looking into her face expectantly. The side of her mouth turned up in a half-smile. His expression warmed.

"What are you doing?" she asked, amused.

"Watching you sleep," he murmured. She looked down at her clothes, and back at him suspiciously, but with a twinkle of humor.

"Is that all?"

"I swear," he said solemnly. "No monkey business."

"I'm disappointed," she teased. He frowned. "Did you sleep?" she asked.

"I tried. I won't sleep normally for a day or so... I've been here for about an hour..."

"I know."

"You knew I was here? How? You didn't move or react, even when I touched you."

"Oh, so now you admit you DID touch me!" she accused playfully.

"I touched your hair, that's all. Well, and your shoulder..."

"Uh huh... go on..."

He looked a bit embarrassed.

"Carlisle, I knew you were here because I still hear your thoughts even when I'm 'asleep'."

"Did you know it was me yesterday... when I… you know... treated you badly?"

"Yes." Her fingers traced his cheekbone, his sideburn, the top of his ear.  
>"I didn't mind what you did."<p>

"But I-"

"You've already apologized and I asked you to let it go. You didn't hurt me. I am very strong, very durable. I loved your energy at that moment. Your passion. I loved that you wanted me so much despite what you had just found out about me. It excited me. I loved that my body could make you feel so good. I loved that you had never done that before and it was so pleasurable to you..."

"You were conscious that whole time? Why didn't you wake up sooner?"

"I told you. I knew it was you. I knew what was going on in your mind. I didn't want to change a thing. You were maddened and sexy. I was enjoying being a voyeur to your experience. My participation would have changed that." Her grin was mischievous. "Then, when you were so far gone it didn't matter, I allowed myself to 'waken'. You say you were 'bad', but if so, I was just as bad..."

He shook his head slowly. "Our perspectives on everything are so different. It keeps me off balance... Dee, I have a question. Are you really asleep in the daytime? Cuz it's not sleep like I sleep."

"No. It is not the unconsciousness humans experience. To answer the question you are thinking but not asking - yes, if I was in danger, I would know, and I could defend myself." She kissed him, looking up at him through her long eyelashes. "But I have nothing to fear from you. You love me."

He returned her kiss, introducing his tongue, then grew more demanding, holding her face in both hands like a ripe and succulent fruit, sucking and tasting the sweet, cool flesh of her lips and tongue. He welcomed the drafts of brilliant hues that she poured over him as he devoured her mouth.

"Take off your robe," he panted.

She pushed up on one elbow coquettishly, then sat up on her knees, opening the robe wide at the neck, pushing it off her shoulders to rest on her fair arms just above the elbows, her nipples bared, pale pink and erect. A lock of hair fell out of place over half of her face, making her look dramatically innocent and whorish at the same time. She untied the belt, letting the robe fall open to reveal her smooth nakedness underneath. Her genitals were still tucked between her legs as they always were when she slept. She let the robe slip to the bed and waited for his next order.

"Lean back on your hands. Spread your knees."

She complied without shame, and he sat up to face her, wriggling out of his t-shirt and flannel sleep pants. The extended fingers of both hands reached to trace the lateral peaks of her shoulders, descended to spread across her clavicles then converge at her breastbone. The heels of his palms circled her nipples, skimmed the ridges of her ribs and diaphragm. His thumbs intersected at her navel, pressing inward and upward until they forced the breath from her lungs.

He caressed the tops of her thighs, reaching between them to cup her half-erect cock. He had worried he would flinch at the strangeness of a penis in his hand, but he was reminded of his dream in which the angel he caressed was an extension of himself.

"I- I don't know what to do," he whispered shyly, hesitating.

"Please yourself, and you please me."

She put her hand over his, guiding his grasp and movements, the pressure and manipulation of his fingers, until he was confident to continue on his own. He stopped over-thinking, and just gave of himself, finding he knew exactly what to do. He watched her face as she responded to the intimate touch of his one hand, his other braced at her throat. It thrilled him to see her eyes closed, her lips parted, her head thrown back, her lovely long neck stretched under his fingers.

She stilled his hand, opened her eyes, and reached to the bedside to retrieve a small bottle of gel. She prepared herself first, then reached for him carefully. He cried out when she wrapped her slick hand around the tip of his cock, coating it thickly. She lay down, her legs on either side of his chest as he knelt, knees bent. She drew him towards her, on top of her, guiding him. Grasping her legs he pressed forward, uttering something between a cry and a groan as he entered her. Her hands over his as he held her legs, she urged him to move. After a minute, he focused on her face, then reached between her legs to resume his ministrations to her cock.

With effortless flexibility, she bent up and forward, straddling him, drawing their chests closer, her cock pressed against his abdomen. She nuzzled into the crook of his neck, sucking and licking at his pulse point. Her teeth broke the skin, and she began to draw from him. Now the sounds of increasing pleasure she made paralleled his own. He felt the cool, wet ribbons on his chest as she came, and he let go himself, gripping her tightly until the heavenly pulsing diminished.

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

****


	19. 19 Edward

**Immortalis Caris - Chapter 19**

Carlisle started back to work after the weekend. If he had felt removed from that world before, it seemed like another planet now. He still took his smoke breaks on the roof three times a day, but he didn't smoke. The last pack of cigarettes he had opened was on the floor of his car somewhere, forgotten and stale. He perched on the edge of the roof, enjoying the slightly warmer weather, glancing at the window on the third floor of the Omega now and then. Of course, in the middle of the day, there would be no movement in the curtains, Dee was in her daily hibernation. But the thought that she was there, tucked away in the womb of the inner bedroom, waiting for him, never failed to thrill him.

Spring was coming. She would make no more early appearances, no early awakenings as the days got longer, as the sun lingered in the sky.

If he were her, he would already be sick of all his questions. Every evening they were together, every moment of their time together, was filled with conversation and sex - until Carlisle had to sleep for work the next day.

That's when she went out to hunt - when he slept. Every once in a while there would be a news story on an unsolved murder or inexplicable death in the area, but Carlisle never spoke of these things to Dee.

Carlisle loved the long evenings gazing up at the vast night sky as they laid on the floor in front of the huge window in the condo. Every time he asked even a simple question about Dee's past, the answer opened up a window to the puzzle of her existence that never ceased to fascinated him. The more he learned about her, the more complex she became to him, and he wondered if he would ever know her whole story, if she would ever cease to surprise him.

Though Carlisle had now accepted that his lover was male, he still thought of Dee as 'she' - and though he knew the pronoun was not accurate, it did not feel wrong. One day he asked, "What's 'Dee' short for?"

"Edward," she replied lightly. He sat up, temporarily stunned. He had never considered that she might have a masculine name. He looked at her for a long minute.

"Would you prefer I call you 'Edward'?"

"I have no preference, really, unless you think it's sexy, then go right ahead," she smiled suggestively. "And...is it OK if I call you Caris?" She was already well aware that he associated that term of endearment with the most intimate of moments between them.

He embraced her, moving her hair aside to chew lightly on the back of her neck. "Oh, I'll tolerate it... where does that come from anyway?"

"You'll have to hear about one of my past lovers for the Edward story," she raised her eyebrows in mock warning, "and the story about Caris is very long... and strange..."

"We have aaaaall night, and I'm already used to strange."

"I don't remember my parents, I only remember the creature that raised me, cared for me, changed me. I told you once I was _taken _from my parents when I was an infant. That isn't completely accurate. I was _given _to her by my parents when I was about two. She was feared and respected by my parents' tribe, a medicine man, a shaman, set apart from the tribe. Medicine men, whether male or female, are thought of as superior beings for whom gender is irrelevant.

"She told me that my real father had been a 'stranger,' a white man from the cities far away, where she had come from, across the 'great water.' He had come to our world then traveled across our land on a horse. He had seen my mother when she was just a girl, gathering food alone outside her village, and forced himself on her, putting a baby inside her. No young man in the tribe wanted her because she had been touched by one of the strangers. An older man in the tribe took her as a wife when his wife died. He accepted my existence, but I was not considered his son. There was always superstitious fear from the tribe because I looked so different from their babies. I had red hair and green eyes and skin much paler than theirs.

"After I was born, my stepfather and mother had two other children. Then my stepfather fell ill; he was close to death. My mother was desperate she would be left a widow with small children, and that made her brave. She brought him to the terrible medicine woman Nukpana in the night. Nukpana did indeed heal him, but the price required was their child's life for his. I was the child my mother surrendered. This was actually not considered cruel on her part. In fact, I was considered blessed for being chosen to a calling with one foot in the natural world and one in the spirit world. What they did not realize was that Nukpana was not a spiritual practitioner at all. She was a vampire. A creature beyond their conception that did not fit into their legends and beliefs at all.

"She had been born human almost 500 years before in Eastern Europe. Her father had been a nobleman, a brilliant man, interested in chemistry and medicine, which at that time was part of the forbidden alchemy and had to be studied in secret due to the rise of Orthodox Christianity. She studied under her father – sciences and languages - far beyond the education given to girls, even those of wealthy houses. After his death at the hands of church leaders, she continued to study, hungry for a means to avenge his death and protect her family's lands. She sought out the vampires of legend in that country, seeking to combat the evil of the church with a more ancient evil. In the course of her searching, she was changed into a vampire herself. She was in her thirtieth year. She got her revenge against the church officials but in the end disease and age wiped out her family and she was left isolated anyway. Impervious to disease in her now immortal state, and showing no signs of aging, she put her affairs in order and, dressed as a man, left to wander Europe.

"She lived in Spain in the 1300's, attracted by the resources of the great Islamic libraries and colleges. She watched as a third of the population was wiped out during the plague. When exotic tales of the exploration of the New World of the Americas began to circulate, she engineered passage on a ship and went to see what new the world offered.

"She roamed the North American continent for 100 years, learning the culture and languages of the native people long before the European settlers took hold. In this way she established herself as a medicine man.

"The language she taught me was a mixture of the native dialects of my tribe and related ones, some Slavic language and Latin, the language of academics. I called her 'ingu', the Hopi word for mother.

"She cared for me, treated me not quite as her child , but as a beloved student and a companion. We were isolated from the surrounding tribes. I had no role model but her. I thought of myself as a woman like her, though I was human and she was not, though I was male and she was not. She had lived as many years as a man as she had as a woman, depending on convenience and circumstances, and she taught me to shift as she did. She told me she was a superior being and I should want to be like her. From the time I was a baby, she nursed me on her own blood, and later fed me animal meat from her hunts. I never questioned her. I had no basis for comparison. She was all I knew. She never named me, she called me "Caris," which in Latin, means beloved."

"So I'm your beloved?" Carlisle murmured, shifting position to relieve the pins and needles in his arm. Reading his thought, she faced him so she could massage his arm, looking at him in a way that answered with no need for words.

She continued.

"When I was seventeen, she took my human life. She changed me into what she was, saying I was now 'immortalis' like her. She considered it a gift, but for me it was traumatic. Even after all the years of living with her, knowing her ways intimately, I was not prepared to become this creature I now am. Not only did my senses explode, my skin turn this deathly white, my craving for blood drown out every other thought and emotion, but something very unexpected happened. I was able to hear the thoughts of others.

"At first it was only her thoughts, the only thing to which I was exposed, and that was strange enough for me. But when I came in contact with humans, the thoughts were deafening and incomprehensible to me. It took me a long time to get used to that - to turn down the volume and begin to comprehend them - but in time, that skill turned out to be invaluable. I have learned so many essential things to help me survive in the human world.

"But in the beginning, I grieved, I protested. And finally, I rebelled. I left her, which was almost as devastating to me as the change itself.

"What happened to her?"

"She had once threatened that if I ever left her, she would go to the mountain and lie in the sun until she was burned to ash. At the time, I hoped, in my anger, she would do just that. But after I had wandered for a year, I longed to see her, and returned to that place. I found no trace that she had ever existed. The only thing I found was the drawings I myself had made in the cave where she raised me. She had been represented by me in those drawings, when I was a child, both in her more human appearance and her creature appearance. That is all I have. I don't know what happened to her, but I feel... if she were still alive she would have searched for me and found me. She cared for me, cherished me, and I left her. I think she no longer wished to exist.

"After many years of living on the edges of civilization, I was lonely, so I began to consider strategies to integrate. I had grown up as an outsider, an 'other' in the language of my tribe, and I was not even aware of all the subtle differences in myself and humans until I started to observe them closely on a regular basis. I made many mistakes, but with observation and time, I mastered mimicry; I was eventually able to approximate human appearance with my clothing and body movements. I also had to learn to resist the smell of their blood.

"My first relationship was in the early 1600's. I was hunting in what is now the state of Virginia. An old woman lived with her son in the forested hills. She wasn't afraid of me. That was what caught and kept my interest. She would call out to me in the forest. I would come closer, and though most humans were not even aware of my presence, she always knew when I was near. She didn't see well, but she had some special sense other humans didn't have. Eventually I approached her, and an affection developed between us. I missed my 'ingu', and she had lost her daughter. She brought me her daughter's simple dresses, and I wore them to please her. We filled a need in each other. She called me her 'ange douce'; she loved to brush my hair as she sang to me. I learned French from her, for that is all she spoke. I never told her what I was, but I think she knew somehow.

"Her adult son, Edouard, though initially wary of me, in time accepted me because she did. He earned their living by trapping and hunting, and I would often bring the more coveted animals to him to harvest for their fur. This gave him an edge over other trappers; he made good money. He was grateful for the contribution and for the company to his mother while he was away trading. He didn't ask questions, but then, of course, he was a hard-working, solitary man, not used to conversation.

"When she died, he told me I could stay in the house if I wanted to. I think his mother had tried to explain me to him in her way, and had asked him to take care of me when she was gone. Maybe he was lonely too, and he had gotten used to me. In any case, after a time, he and I became intimate. I accepted a more feminine role because that pleased him, and it pleased me to please him. I was with him some 30 years. I would leave for periods of time to explore, but I always returned to him. Edouard was a rough, uneducated man, but there was a kindness that belied his coarseness. He loved music. He would play for me the French folk songs his mother had sung to him.

"I found him dead in the forest one day. He had gone missing, and I followed his scent. Perhaps it was a heart attack; I never knew. I stayed in the house for a while, but became lonely again. I gathered money and other things from the house, and left. I dressed in his clothes, and I took his name. That is how I became Edward.

"I spent years exploring the continent. I went South to Mexico, North to Nova Scotia. Every so often I would go back to the place I was raised and look for signs that 'ingu' might have passed there. I made more drawings in the cave in case she returned to look for me just as I looked for her.

"After 100 years, I stopped hoping."

Carlisle's lips found her temples, and lingered there when she fell silent.

"After all this time, her loss still affects you so strongly," he said sympathetically. "It's one thing to be the last of your family's line, like I am. It's another thing to be the last of your species."

"Oh, I'm sure others exist somewhere in the world, but she is the only vampire I ever knew, so yes, it is kind of an irreconcilable loneliness."

"How did you become 'Dee'?" he prompted, hoping to distract her.

"It took me a whole human lifetime to really become comfortable living near groups of humans. I stayed on the outskirts of towns, made a few connections. My relationships varied. I looked for mother figures, and in the cities, it was easy for a boy of my apparent age to find older married women who were eager to mother me. Many were also eager for sexual attention. They were tolerant of my oddness because of my youth and beauty.

"I had never confided the full extent of my changed nature to any human - even Edouard. But Edouard did not ask why I never got older or was strong or fast or didn't go out in the sunlight or didn't eat food. Perhaps because he spent his life observing and hunting wild creatures, he understood that I was one, too - one he would never understand, and didn't need to.

"Unlike you..." she added teasingly. "After Edouard and up until the 19th century I always had to leave my partners before my unchanging age became a matter of question. And I presented myself as male because it would have been nearly impossible to be a single wandering woman in those times.

"In the mid-1700's I ended up in New Orleans. It had become the capital of Louisiana and had a reputation as a fascinating city influenced by humans from many different countries and cultures. There I encountered people who could actually conceive of what I was, and some were not afraid of the idea. I spent more than 100 years in and around New Orleans.

"I met men who were sophisticated, educated and did not associate intimately with women. I was sought after because of my appearance. I had three long relationships with men who had the money and the power to keep my secret from society. Two of them I married, and I lived my life in the role of their wives, their 'beards', dressing in fine women's clothes and playing the role as necessary. One of these men helped me to set up a separate and permanent human identity as Edward, with bank accounts and real estate even though I was living with him as his wife 'Dee'. 'Dee' was short for Edward, as in 'Eddie', but was usually construed to be derivative of some female name. These men not only knew my sex, they knew my need for blood and accommodated my need to live an alternate life style out of the sun. "

"What happens if the sun does directly touch you?"

"My skin burns. It's slow, fortunately. The times I have been caught in the sun, I have been able to reach shelter in time to prevent serious injury... and death. Once I am out of the rays, I heal quickly."

"The day I met you, how were you able to leave your apartment and get to the games store before dark?"

"It was going to snow, remember? The heavy cloud cover allows me protection from the sun. If the sun has gone down, but there is still light in the sky, I'm fine. The sun is not directly on me... Carlisle, you're sleepy."

"No," Carlisle yawned. "Tell me more."

"I have a puzzle to finish. I've talked enough for one night. You're making me miss Edouard. He didn't ask so many questions." Dee put a pillow over her face. Carlisle slipped his hand under the front waistband of Dee's sweats.

"Nope. No puzzles. I still want your attention now."

He moved his hand in a slow rhythm beneath the fabric. He removed it and stared pointedly, the soft cloth tenting where it had been flat before. Dee groaned. Carlisle threw his leg across the boy's hips, sitting on top of him, straddling him. He continued the rhythm with his rear, riding him until his arms dropped limply and the pillow fell to the floor. Carlisle grabbed a fold of the boy's neck in his teeth, then let go, grabbed another sweet mouthful, let go, grabbed a nipple in his teeth, let it go, wrapped the whole areola in a wet bite, let it go.

The boy's breathing was loud and irregular.

"Hmmmm... So... still miss what's-his-name?"

"Who?" said the boy distractedly, his eyelids fluttering.

Carlisle smirked, leaned over, and spoke one word, breathy and sultry, into the boy's perfect ear.

"Edward."

He thrust hard with his hips. He lowered his voice to a growl.

"Edward..."

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

**Epilogue**


	20. Epilogue

**Immortalis Caris - Epilogue**

He woke in the dark and reached for the lamp on the nightstand. A movement across the room caught his eye and he grunted a short laugh. _You could have turned the light on._

"I didn't want to wake you," came the soft voice from the figure hunched over the puzzle. The boy's fingers moved deftly, easily assembling the tiny nondescript pieces that had confounded the members of Mensa for the past year.

Carlisle stood stiffly to dress, groaning a little at the creak in his bones. _If you finish it, you won't have anything to do for the rest of the evening._

"Oh yes we will," the boy corrected, peeking at him from the bronze waterfall that hid his pale face as he fitted the last of the 5,000 pieces into place and leaned back, completely satisfied with his handiwork.

Carlisle snorted. "Fifteen years ago, I'd have gotten hard just on that - "

_Fifteen years ago... _He dragged his fingers through his hair as he stretched his back.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years together, learning to be together. Fifteen years without loneliness or worry or -

_Drugs. _He thought of the tiny taste of meth in the film canister, locked inside Edward's metal puzzle box at Carlisle's request, untouched all these years. _Why do I keep it? _He thought guiltily of the blood, biting his lower lip in subliminal need, and rushed to push the thought from his mind before the other noticed.

"Don't you need to feed?" he asked quickly - aloud - to change the subject. They'd been in the motel three days and Edward still hadn't ventured out.

"I did while you were sleeping," he murmured, resting lazily on his elbows but Carlisle wasn't fooled.

"You did?" he was still surprised, by the admission if nothing else, but then, there was no end to Edward's surprises. Fifteen years on, he was still figuring him out.

"You're so tired!" Like a cat, the boy moved in one swift motion and was beside him. "I'll make you feel better."

_No - _He took a step back shaking his head. _I'm okay, I just need to eat, that's all, get some caffeine in my system. _He hated getting older. He hated admitting the physical limitations of the body that caged him.

"It's alright," the boy soothed. He pressed the man gently back down on the polyester comforter. "We can both have what we want." He had already drawn a red line across his chest and leaned over.

Carlisle's mouth instantly attached itself.

_Fire from the fucking gods..._

…..ll x ll x ll x ll…..

_Special thanks to Fanfiction author and artist Kyilliki  
>for the beautifully inspired banner in transcendent desert shades of copper and slate. I am honored to have had the pleasure of her participation as my artist!<em>

_Mere thanks seem hardly adequate for my beta  
>the brilliant, dedicated, unstoppable force of nature that got me involved in this bizarre crossover in the first place! The delicious hours spent with her - editing and arguing online - were what made it worth all the effort!<em>

_**Inspirational nods**___

_Vampire paradigms:  
>Let The Right One In, True Blood, Twilight<br>Anne Rice, Whitley Streiber, Bram Stoker_

_New Mexico - enchantment & then some_

_Remembering the friends I lost to meth  
>Jerrame Hugh, Andy, Kip<br>Grateful for the ones that survived  
>Marguerite, Travis, Ted<br>& of course my own Immortalis Caris, Miss Rhonda_


End file.
